The Black Joke

by Farley Mowat

Book Overview

The Black Joke is a rousing sea story in the tradition of the great classic pirate tales. The time is the 1930s. The loot is bootleg liquor, not pirate gold. And the ship is the "Black Joke," the speediest, nimblest craft on the Newfoundland coast - Jonathon Spence, owner and master. An unwelcome passenger enmeshes the boat and her crew (young Peter and Kye) in danger and near destruction...until the fiercely independent people of the island of Miquelon are caught up in the fate of the "Black Joke" and the cargo aboard her.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0771066791
• ISBN13: 9780771066795
• Release Date: September 1987
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 4.3" x 7.0"
• Age Range: 10 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 5 and higher

Customer Reviews

An inventive novel of Newfoundland and St-Pierre

I think what I like best about "The Black Joke," is that it introduces the reader to a little known corner of North America: Newfoundland and St-Pierre and Miquelon. The other thing I like about it is that it proves that Farley Mowat can write just about anything he sets his mind to. With an historical background that is not negligible (nor does it matter much to the actual plot), the book Mowat has set out to write is ostensibly for children. It follows a classic "Boys Own" formula of putting the action safely into the hands of a pair of enterprising youngsters who then have to deal as well as they can with the baddies. It is really an excellent story of the sea; readers of maritime literature will love the boat that lends its name to the book, and bewail its apparent fate near the end. I suppose children will also like this book, although it seems so old-fashioned in many ways. Nevertheless, if you can convince a 12-year-old to have a look at it, you may make another convert, both to Mowat and the art of reading. Just don't forget to read it yourself!Mowat seems to have tried an experiment with this book and I am confounded a bit to know why he didn't try and take it a bit further with other volumes. He had already written one of his Arctic stories for children, "Lost in the Barrens," by the time he wrote this one, and he subsequently wrote a sequel to it. But "The Black Joke" has to stand alone and I suppose all one can say is that, based on his output since its 1962 publication, it has nothing to do with fearing the hard work of writing. Excellent and underrated book.