For LOUD girls everywhere
I found this book in a second hand shop today and couldn't resist buying it for my daughter. Ok, I really bought it for myself but thought daughter would appreciate it too!
It's the story of a little girl called Emily who is TOO LOUD. Her parents despair and her tutor advises sending her to Miss Meekmeister's School for Soft Spoken Girls. This makes Emily sad and "a misty grayness crept inside her that would not go away." Instead Emily runs away to sea and joins Captain Burroo's "kind but luckless" crew where her job is to shout commands from the fo'c'sle to the quarterdeck. Emily gets to shout things like AVAST! LUFF HER UP BEFORE WE'RE STOVE and FURL THE MAIN AND STOP IT DOWN. She also sings fo'c'sle ballads that make the whales listen and the men cry. Needless to say Emily saves her ship in a storm and when fog rolls into the harbour threatening to wreck the fleet on the rocks she races across a bridge of whales to the top of the lighthouse tower and bellows until the all the ships turn back out to sea. Emily becomes the heroine of the town and nobody ever complains about her being noisy again.
What a brilliant story :) And of course it's great fun to read aloud as you get to shout lots of nautical commands in Emily's VERY LOUD VOICE. Fabulous! But possibly very annoying for the neighbours :}
O'Neil, A., (1999), Loud Emily, Pocket Books, London.