Review: The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found

The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin W. Sandler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Okay, so this book had two of my pet peeves within the first two chapters, which irritated me enough that I didn't want to dedicate my reading time to finish it. But I did. First, the author had word choice issues, like on page 13, "He had to get to know that girl." I know this is a children's/young adult nonfiction book, but I would still like to think that kids are smart enough to know that there are better ways to write that sentence, especially as it's closing out the paragraph.

I also wasn't a fan of the huge sidenotes and I've noticed this in other nonfiction. A sidenote should be just that--a snippet of information located off to the side of the main text. Set it apart with a textbox or something! But when a snippet lasts three complete pages, that, my friend, is a chapter. All it does is disrupt the text and piss readers like me off. The first snippet was used correctly--at the end of Chapter 1. But the next one, "The Articles of Agreement," were just thrown into the middle of Chapter 2 with no rhyme or reason other than the author had mentioned the agreement in the text. That's all and good, but "The Articles" take up three pages in the middle of a sentence of the text--horrible placement. Did the author even have a say in where that went? or was that a book designer's decision?

I also wanted more visuals. The author stressed that the Whydah's uniqueness was a "long platform on its deck for captives who could not..." Well, then, what did that long platform look like? Because I can't picture it. Surely there is an illustration somewhere of it? Or one like it?

There are source notes at the end, as well as a MLA 7th edition bibliography, and photo credits.

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