Junior Library Guild

Ahoy Mateys! It’s the 10^th annual Talk Like a Pirate Day! which was founded on a whim by two guys, John Baur and Mark Summers. As the story goes, they were playing a game of racquetball and as the game digressed, they began to encourage each other in pirate slang. Why not have a day where we do that every year? They chose September 19. That was in 1995.

For the next seven years they pretty much celebrated the holiday with a few friends. Then something big happened. It was 2002. They sent an email to Dave Barry. Now we all know Dave Barry as a funny man, but also as the successful author of the Starcatcher series. Dave wrote about Talk Like a Pirate Day in his column. From there other countries picked up the story. Australia. Ireland. And of course, the US.

For the last 10 years, people all over the world don their tri-corner hats, eye patches, and puffy sleeve blouses on September 19. Companies use pirate slang in their marketing campaigns. (I just got an ad to “Drop Yer Anchor” from J Peterman catalog company.) You can change your Facebook language to Pirate and see what folks “fancy”) Libraries pull out their pirate books and tell stories. Teachers send kids on treasure hunts. Today in NY where Peter and the Starcatchers is currently on Broadway, two pirates with the best pirate mustaches will win tickets to see the show. The judges? Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. Of course.

Pull out your copy of Lives of the Pirates by Kathleen Krull and read a few stories today. (And thanks, Kathy, for the reminder that it was a comin’!) Weigh in on what yer doin’ on the JLG Facebook page. Yo-ho-ho! Goodbye!

---

---