Pirates - good. Ridiculous pirates - even better. Boring characters - bad. Characters so intentionally dull as to become ridiculous - not so bad. This book is part of that subset of middle grade fiction that works based on the absurd. Not for everyone but entertaining enough to read once.

I continue my quest for middle grade novels that I love to read to Tesfa as much as Tesfa loves having them read to her.

So here we have a book of female pirates, who kidnap the Bland Sisters, to take them on their pirating adventures. The writing is full of quirk and cleverness and sort of nonsensicalness that recalls Pooh and Piglet's conversations.

"...And then we can swim until we find land. There must be land
within swimming distance, in some direction.”

“There’s one problem,” said Jaundice.

“What’s that?” asked Kale.

“We don’t know how to swim,” said Jaundice.

“Excellent point,” said Kale.

And, as one sees above, the sisters are named Jaundice and Kale, which I appreciate, having once told Tesfa she had two imaginary sisters named Strawberry and Pumpernickel who lived in our back shed. And Tesfa was happy, asking, as we ended the book the two questions that always mean she enjoyed the story (Is this our book? as opposed to the library's, which means she can read it whenever she wants; and Is there going to be a sequel? so she can read more set in this world.)

I love middle grade novels. I love clever writing. I love girl power stories. But then The Jolly Regina has a whole vexing bullying subplot that made me uncomfortable. I had a Feeling as the Bland Sisters would say. I'm not great with bullying subplots, or people being mean to other people, or shunning subplots, to begin with (for example, Harriet the Spy upset me quite a bit and I'm not reading it to Tesfa ever), and I'm never happy with platitudes like "they bully you because you're special" or getting back at bullies by being mean to them in turn. Plus the fat-shaming that started the whole bullying in the first place makes me a sad panda. Additionally, why can't people be fat without having to be all I'm going to eat well and exercise as a resolution to their story? Sure the message -- don't be mean to people, exercise and healthy eating are A-Okay -- is fine, but as sound as the message is, the presentation is problematic and sloppy. It soured the whole experience for me, and, clearly striking a nerve, I can't get past it to focus on anything else that happened in the story. My mind is stuck there.

I still feel uncomfortable thinking about it. I guess that says more about me than about The Jolly Regina.

The Jolly Regina by Kara LaReau went on sale January 10, 2017.

Jaundice and Kale Bland are living in Dullsville, waiting for their parents to return from the errand that they left to do years ago. Neither sister really remembers their parents but they are content with the life they have, darning socks, eating cheese sandwiches, and reading from Dr. Snoote's Dictionary. They live utterly uniteresting lives and are happy to do so. That's why it's shocking when there's a knock on the door and somebody tells the girls that they are about to get a surprise.
The Jolly Regina by Kara LaReauLittle do they know that their bland lives are about to get a lot more colorful.
I enjoyed the story and liked the added vocabulary lessons. I also really liked that the sisters felt most comfortable at home and that adventure was not necessarily their end goal. So many kid books are about going on great adventures and I wasn't that kid and it's so nice to read about someone more like myself.

Four stars
This book comes out January 10