Why Pirates: I Owe It All To Jim Hawkins

Of my childhood interests and pastimes, I could number among them neither comics, pirates, nor westerns.

Pirates weren't big in West Tennessee when I was a child.
There was no sea, no sailing ships, no privateers.
I had no interest in pirates.

Of course, that changed after I read Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Treasure Island.

Treasure Island is the adventure tale of the boy Jim Hawkins.
And this is what made, and continues to make the story so appealing: Jim Hawkins is a boy like any boy, save the incredible adventure. But all boys, of all ages, wish they could have the adventure of young Jim Hawkins.

Treasure Island has it all: Billy Bones, Captain Flint, Blind Pew, Squire Trelawney, the Black Spot, Ben Gunn, maps, and buried treasure.

What's not to appeal to the boy in all of us!