Part One provides insight into the way young readers receive the literature aimed at them and it gives an overview of the history of children’s and young adult literature and literary criticism. It also focuses on the theory of reader-response criticism and the notion of an implied young reader, together with the presence of didacticism in children’s and young adult literature.

Part Two consists of a detailed analysis of a selection of children’s and young adult novels which deal with the theme of piracy. The main topics of discussion are quest journeys, protagonists’ relationships with guiding figures and rites of passage.

Part Three is about historical settings and it contains a detailed intertextual analysis of two novels. Gender issues in all the selected pirate novels are also discussed in detail here.

Literary theory shows that children’s and young adult literature is often didactic and reflects the adults’ concerns to instil moral values in young readers, while the novels prove that good and evil characters and deeds are integral parts of stories and of life, and that adult experience must necessarily be gained from both good and evil father-figures, situations and decisions. Teenage fiction also shows that the position of women in society and in literature has changed over time from passive, discriminated against and subordinate to active, strong and equal to men.