The Mystery of Blackbeard the Pirate (Real Kids! Real Places!

Carole Marsh Mysteries: Real Kids, Real Places #3

by Carole Marsh

"His head is missing?" Michele asked. "Whose head?" When the answer turns out to be Blackbeard, fiercest pirate of the all. Four kids set off on a real adventure in North Carolina's real pirate haunt port town of Bath. While struggling to recover a special prop and save an outdoor drama, the kids learn about the Golden Age of Piracy up and down the American coast from Maine to Florida. They also learn a lot of history, solve a mystery, meet a legend and much more! They have a lot of Jolly Roger laughs! But do they find the treasure? Hmm, would they tell? Avast! This mystery's a treasure trove of fun!

LOOK what's in this mystery - people, places, history, and more!
Blackbeard's death History of Bath, NC • Bath geography • History of Ned Teach a.k.a. Blackbeard • Amphitheaters • History of the Bonner family and Bonner's Point • History of the Palmer-Marsh House • Information on St. Thomas Church • Lustre • Pontipool • Mary Ormond, Blackbeard's wife • Legend of the Magic Horse Tracks • Sailors• mirrors • Erosion • Bath Creek • Teach's Hole, Ocracoke Island, NC • Plum Point, Bath • Buzzard Inn, • Bath Public Library • St. Thomas Cemetery • Van Der Veer House • Magic Horse Tracks near Washington, NC.

Like all of Carole Marsh Mysteries, this mystery incorporates history, geography, culture and cliffhanger chapters that will keep kids begging for more! This mystery includes SAT words, educational facts, fun and humor, built-in book club and activities.

Below is the Reading Levels Guide for this book:
Grade Levels: 3-6
Accelerated Reader Reading Level: 5.2
Accelerated Reader Points: 4
Accelerated Reader Quiz Number: 74560
Lexile Measure: 780
Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading Level: Q
Developmental Assessment Level: 40

Get your FREE Resources!



1. Download the Carole Marsh Mysteries Real Kids! Real Places! Correlations to Common Core/State Standards .



2. Download the Where Have You Been map .



3. Utilize the Real Kids! Real Places! Common Core State Standards Teacher Resource for classroom discussion questions and activities for ELA grades 2-6. This can be used for all 50 mysteries .

4. Download additional activities including Fact or Fiction, Fascinating Facts, Book Club Discussions and Book Club Activities .

5. Want a sneak peak? Read the first three chapters .

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

150 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2002

About the author

Carole Marsh is a children's author and the founder of Gallopade International, a children’s book publishing company headquartered in Peachtree City, GA. Marsh writes mystery fiction in addition to works of non-fiction for children. Initially she self-published under the imprint Gallopade Publishing Group, which she founded in 1979; today Gallopade International is a major small publisher based in Peachtree City, Georgia.

In 2007 Marsh received the Georgia Author of the Year award for her contributions to children's literature and to the state of Georgia over the past twenty-seven years.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, quick pirate read my son brought home from the library for me 😊

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had added this on my to-read list and was so leery to read it because I have disliked the others so much. They have all been so outlandish and unrealistic, boring and stupid. But I wanted this off my list and it's set in NC with Blackbeard so I wanted to read it.

It's cool that Bath is the oldest town in NC and has secret passages. It was created in 1705.

The children in here are Michael and Michele, Carole Marsh's real kids, names that are way too similar. I kept having to check to make sure I had the right kid because they looked so alike. Their parents are divorced and their mom was going to be working for 7 weeks. They had to go to Bath and stay with someone. The outdoor drama does sound good, because I thought I had seen all of my state's major plays and I've never heard of Bath having a play about Blackbeard. I'd like to see it when I go. But the prop of Blackbeard's went missing and there was the mystery of who was trying to sabotage the play. They would be staying with John, who has the kids Brian and Jo Dee.

Jack Denning, the man who would be playing Blackbeard, called and invited Michelle to help out and be in the play. Her mom didn't want her to until they found the thief. Michelle really wanted to because it would get into her school drama club. I thought it was funny that she wrote "You have to have experience to get one, but you can't get experience if no one will give you a job in the first place" because I've said that very thing. I was surprised to read it in a kid's book but it's the story of my life.

I liked the mention of Raleigh and the Coastal Plain and all the tobacco plants. There was a responsible message about smoking. Michelle thought it was stupid and couldn't understand why people sucked smoke into their lungs when it was so bad for them.

I was dismayed to learn that you could see the whole town from the bridge. It's only a mile long and 6 blocks wide, with a few hundred people. That doesn't sound worth visiting!

The owner of the pirate store, Ben, told them that some people would be happy about the play closing down because they don't like all the tourists coming into the quiet town.

Things are so forced; they have such an unnatural feel. When Brian handed Michelle her ticket to the play, she saw he'd written "Where do you think it is?" She's never been to this town, she doesn't know anything about it, why would he even ask her? And it was too much that Brian was trying to solve the mystery and Michelle was too. It was also weird and forced how they got off on the wrong foot. Jo Dee gave Michael his ticket and Brian scowled at Michelle sand said "if there's an opening mouth." Michael made a really dumb comment about the ticket being poison because there's a skull and crossbones on it and Brian said don't eat it. Michelle took offense and didn't like his teasing her brother. What Michael said was stupid. He deserved it. She thought Brian was grumpy.

And the confusion just kept going. Things never add up. It's convenient and hokey to the max. Michelle bought some mystery items that we weren't allowed to know about but that Ben immediately recognized as such. He even called out to her from the shop after they left for her not to lose her head over the mystery. I couldn't wait to see what these items were. Not really, but I was just waiting to be proved right because I know how this author does. And sure enough, I was right. There is absolutely no way anyone would have seen the crap she bought and put that together. She got modeling clay, two marbles, black yarn, and markers. And he knew she was going to recreate the head of Blackbeard and save the play. Riiight. She could have been doing anything with that.

They went to the theater to find fabric for Blackbeard's shirt, and someone dramatically closed the door behind Michelle and Ben. When they got out they discovered the Blackbeard mask had been trashed.

A message in a bottle washed up to the dock, containing a riddle about a room between twin chimneys.

It was kind of a nice touch that Michele invented a secret sign of warning not to talk about the mystery when adults were around. She made a circle with one hand and crossed her pointer and middle finger and put it over the circle like a skull and crossbones.

Brian called his own dad John instead of dad.

Early Bath leaders thought it would be the commercial and political center of the colony. It was for several years. Government officials met there. The harbor was crowded with ships. But they lost to New Bern. It wasn't a good port because of shallow waters and treacherous inlets. So its popularity stopped after the colonial period.

She did point out that Indians inhabited the area before Bath was the first town, but it sounded bad when she said between Indians and pirates the town had a lot of wear and tear, because they were here before white people so it was their land first.

The Bonner House was a family whose house was mostly built with lumber from a shipwreck off the Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks. That's so cool because I went to a library program about shipwrecks and learned the Outer Bankers used whatever materials washed up and were very resourceful about, well, kind of stealing things that washed ashore. The baseboard in the bedrooms was finger-painted because that's how they decorated back then.

It's cool that the Outer Banks are part of the Graveyard of the Atlantic, which is from the east coast from Maine to Florida, and was once the haunt of pirates.

Jo Dee had thought of a location of the two chimneys but of course Michele was the one who figured out the real location, not the two kids who live there, but the outsider who's never been there before.

It was a good scene when Michele and Brian took a tour of the old house. They needed to see the rooms between the two chimneys to find the head like the poem said so they split up and ducked under the roped off areas. Michele opened a door and saw two feet instead of the head she was expecting, and followed it up to Brian's face. He'd scared her and he teased her about not being up for finding the missing head. Their rooms had both led to this door. Unlike the others, this was believable and actually funny.

It was annoying though how Michele wanted to be the one to find the head and singlehandedly save the day. She said she'd be disappointed if anyone except her found it. It was her center state obsession at work and she wanted to be the heroine and save the show. That was selfish and like a glory-hog. Then she realized that even if someone else found it, it might be enough to save the play and she could be in it. It's not all about you, Michele.

They were there when Mr. Tankard discovered that the money from opening night was stolen out of the cash box. Michele found a black hair and before John demanded they leave and give him the hair, Michele had kept a part of the strand. Brain looked at her with admiration and they tried to determine if it came off the real head or not.

I found it odd that the two young kids were scarce so much. They stayed to watch the Blackbeard movie while Michele and Brian searched the old house. They reunited after but then they split up while Jo Dee and Michael went for ice cream. When they went to the library, Michele had them stay inside and read while she and Brian went outside to research.

They found another message in a bottle, about the chimneys were a dead end and that Blackbeard's head hung in the wind. They were trying to think of places where the head could be.

When Bath was a frontier settlement, 1,000 books were given to St. Thomas Parish as a library and it was the first public library in NC.

There's a church that's the oldest church in NC still existing. The floor tiles were embedded in sand so they could be removed. Settlers were buried under them so Indians wouldn't find them.

In the church they found the collection plate full of money, and Brian figured it was the stolen theater money. They took it all out, surprisingly. I expected them to call the law or something official. And the author skipped over how the reveal went. I was mighty surprised that the theater accepted money from a couple kids who claimed it was the same money without any proof.

She'd spotted the shadow of a beard in the window so someone had seen them. There was an element of suspense wondering who it was and what they were going to do. Michele heard a bell in town and thought the riddle meant a bell. It was nice how Michele said she didn't want to be with the others watching TV; she wanted to be living it herself.

As they went to look for the bell, Michele mentioned John and the kids missing them and Brian said he didn't think so because John falls asleep while watching TV. Convenient. Too convenient.

St. Thomas's bell is older than the Liberty Bell.

After they rang the bell at night and hoped the mask was inside it, and it turned out to be a bird's nest instead, a pirate figure emerged. He had a sword and outfit and everything and yelled at them but they ran say through the graveyard.

I really liked the scene where Michele woke up grumpy from a bad night's sleep to the three of them in her room with another bottle. She wasn't having any of it. And I really liked when she said she wasn't sure she liked Brian seeing her messy.

They went to see the play but wondered where everyone was because the audience was almost empty. It wasn't until halftime that the crowds came. Mr. Tankard said it's because someone had the sign for Bath pointed to the wrong direction. Some people got mad and wanted a refund.

The next morning Michele was in the kitchen with John and her mom who came down to get something, and noticed another bottle outside. It was empty so she figured they'd found a clue and hadn't told her. She imagined Brian strutting down the street holding the head and asked how he dared upstage her. "She shouldn't care who found it at this point, but she always did want to be the star of the show, as Mother said. Was that so bad? She just wanted to be special, to stand out from the crowd."
She had moments where she was likable, and then moments like this where I wanted a new personality. I wanted to remind her that this is Brian's town and he knew about the missing head before you even got there...because he lives there.

In colonial days everything was practical and had a purpose. But lustres are glass prisms that the shines through and refracts light. It's just designed to look pretty.

She found them all in an old house, and they were finding notes all over the place, one clue leading to another clue and so on.

The top step was shorter than the rest so that when men came home from the tavern they would trip and fall and wake up their wife so she would know how late it was.

Sailors had brass mirrors because glass might break on ship.

When ladies on Bath wanted to test their engagement rings they would write their names on the window. If the stone cut into the glass they knew it was a real diamond.

Blackbeard's wife's maiden name was Ormond and many of his descendants use that name instead of Teach.

The Magic Hoof Prints are five hoofprints and anything placed there always disappears. They've been there 150 years. Legend goes that Jesse Elliot was racing and told his horse to take him in a winner or take him to hell. The horse stopped so fast that its hooves went I to the ground and Jesse was thrown into a tree. Grass tree around the prints but the tracks are smooth and clean.

There was no head at the hoofprints, so it turned out to be another dead end. I was getting frustrated with the tricks and the clues that led nowhere. They kept leaving places empty-handed. That's when Michele realized the best place to his head to be was Plum Point, where he lived. While there she put all the clues together and saw they formed a map of Bath. All the locations they had already checked were marked off, except one place. The only place they hadn't looked was where the amphitheater was. The person had sent them on a wild goose chase in order to keep them away from that spot.

The drunk Cap'n rowed them out but forgot to pick them up and it started storming. The strange man with the beard that's always walking around town with a bag came rowing by and stopped and they were scared to death and sure he was the one tricking them and now coming to get them. It turned out he's an archaeologist and it was funny how they were giving him the third degree.

This was the best-written. "...in Bath Creek, but the sky above Catnip Point looked dark without even any freckles of stars or even or it's usual smile of a moon."

John asked two of them to go to the store and two to stay and do chores, so of course Michael and Jo Dee wanted to go. The youngest kids are going to the store to buy things, very good idea. That left Brian and Michele with time to go investigate the hoof print site after they were done.

I didn't expect for the big reveal to occur on stage. Michele was looking at the cast's names and knew who had done it. She decided to march on stage during the play and announce it in front of everyone. She finally got her center stage time, which like of annoyed me that she got her way when she was being selfish the whole time. And of course she was the one to figure it out. Ozzie Ormond, whose real name is Oswald Teach, because they'd learned that Blackbeard's descendants changed their names to Ormond, Blackbeard's wife's maiden name. He admitted it. He had a business and a wife but them the main road was moved and his business failed. He went bankrupt and had to move for work. His wife loved Bath and would come back to visit, but she was killed in an accident. Ozzie works for the costumer so had access with the head.

Tank announced the play would go on and Michele would get to be in it next year. He wrote her a letter saying she was going to appear in the outdoor drama next year and that without her the play wouldn't continue to go on.

I liked how the day they were leaving Brian was acting brusque and said "Here, I'll take that" and grabbed her box of shells to put in the car. She believed he'd miss her as much as she'd miss him.

Michele felt bad about how wrong they'd been about Ray. He'd come to the play and heard everything and they all had supper that night. The bag they had found at the horse tracks was his because he was testing the magic out.

I was disappointed that they left and Michele didn't day anything to Brian and vice versa. I expects them to say something because there was a little something between them the whole time. But it was funny how their mom said they're so quiet and she thought they'd be telling Jo Dee and Brian goodbye the whole way across the bridge. They laughed and said they are. They were turned around looking out the back holding up the crossbones sign to them, and they were doing it back.

It was good ending where Michele waved goodbye to Catnip Point, dreamed about the play next year, and the water against the bridge sounded like applause.

There were pictures of the Blackbeard head and it looked like a gruesome thing. The pictures do add to it so we know what the kids look like and some of the settings but I would like to see more of the town, the actual buildings and things l I could picture more of their surroundings. It's disappointing that Brian couldn't see Michele acting and we don't get to experience her in the play.

I liked the facts on Blackbeard. He and his crew terrorized from Maine to Florida. People in Charles Town (Charleston) were terrified when they learned that Blackbeard was offshore and ready to shoot his cannon unless they rowed him medicine and supplies.
Blackbeard often careened his ship in Virginia's waters to scrape the barnacles off so he could sail faster.
The Queen Anne's Revenge could often be seen ashore a NC sandbar as Blackbeard and his crew celebrated Saturnalia, a kind of holiday part and feast of boucan.
Off Maryland he would purposely run his ship aground to trick other pirates into thinking he was stuck, when he was really loading treasure aboard.
In Bath he married his 13th wife, a 13 year old. Ew!

It's really nice that she includes instructions on how to write your own mystery to encourage writing and help readers out. Make up a dramatic title, you can pick 4 real kid characters, select a setting, write a first draft, edit, read final draft aloud, and add art, pics, or illustrations. Her secret tips included creating a crazy, wild title, using strong verbs, edit to improve, use your own unique voice, use a dictionary and thesaurus to find words, and to use your own imagination and have fun.

This still had some of the same problems as the other books, where they could be written better and less immaturely. She had this tendency to write Michael’s face puckering. Michael kept screwing his face together, scrunching up his nose and eyes and that was supremely aggravating. I was sick of it happening and the word “puckered” being used. Clearly that’s a trait her son had but I didn’t want to read about it, esp so often. And I know they're just kids, but I hoped for a little something between Michele and Brian. But I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying the plot and most of the characters. Despite some annoyances, this was a 3 star read because there were so many funny quotes and moments.

[Marcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute mystery!

[•°❀Imargienaryfrnd❀°• · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are indeed many children in this world who once dreamt of being a pirate, at least, when they were kids, and apparently, I am one of those. Who doesn’t love the idea of treasure hunting, sailing a ship that goes almost everywhere despite the dangers incoming, right? We all love to take risks in exchange of some adventures. The maps illustrated in the book had piqued me resulting to me reading this book and enjoying it all along. Sadly, I wasn’t able to collect the rest of the series. Hence, this the mere book I have read.

[Ratforcekids · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the books in America's National Mystery Book series. These books feature kids solving mysteries around the United States. Full of educational fun.

[Thaliagrace · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was a little scary but the ending was amazing.