Book excerpt: This is a quintessential children’s make-up-adventure story and is delightful in its telling. The 28 color images are exquisitely crafted and reflect and add to the essence of the story. Our story is set in the San Francisco area during the Gold Rush era of the late 1840’s and early 1850’s. The Queen of the Pirate Isle is about an imaginative young girl named Polly, who, with her cousin Hickory, a small Chinese boy named Wan Lee, and a neighbour named Patsey, who, after a game of pirates in the house, decide to “run away” to become real pirates. On their way they pass through the mining area where they slip and fall down a steep mud-slide. Polly’s doll’s removable hair got caught on something and ripped off during the fall and is now bald. They end up falling asleep in a nearby mine and are awoken and brought home by the miners, who have dressed up as pirates as a thank-you to Polly and the children as the mine in which they fell asleep led the miners to a new seam of gold.