Join a badger, a capybara, and a whole crew of critters for the voyage of a lifetime! SEACRITTERS! sets sail on March 16, 2027!

Welcome to the schooner Rodentia, which is about to set sail on an impossible mission… *

*A mission that’s already been selected by the Junior Library Guild for their Spring 2027 list!

Monty Mellivore is a young badger who’s spent his short lifetime reading seafaring stories full of adventure and honor and glory, and now dreams of his own life at sea. Much to his surprise, though, the slightly disreputable ship his parents sign him up for turns out to be the pirate ship Rodentia, crewed by a collection of critters led by four capybaras: Captain Rackingbend, her two first mates (the ex-Navy Mr. Spruce and the all-buccaneer-all-the-time Mr. Slapdash), and Lettice Corbell, the young hand who manages the hourglass that keeps track of which first mate is in charge at any time.

The Rodentias want to get official licenses from their country, so they can be privateers rather than just pirates, but the Admiralty of Jigamaria is unimpressed with all the boringly useful work the crew has accomplished. The Admiralty wants something impressive, amazing, epic.

It’s Monty, on his first day, who blurts out the idea of sailing on a quest to find a Jigamaree, the mythical, never-before-documented-in-real-life emblem of Jigamaria.

Pointless? Maybe. Dangerous? Definitely. But, as Captain Rackingbend points out, if they succeed, it will certainly be epic. Now Monty just has to find his place on the Rodentia without getting thrown overboard–and since Lettice has decided she’s going to train Monty to manage the first mates’ hourglass, that could be as much of a challenge as finding a sea monster that might not even exist.

I wrote this book with Lucy Bellwood, a truly brilliant adventure cartoonist who I’ve known for over a decade now. We met when I was working on The Left-Handed Fate and she was working on Baggywrinkles: A Lubber’s Life at Sea.

That’s when I saw this guy, from a Scurvy Dogs, a comic Lucy made specifically about the joys of scurvy:

I loved this guy instantly and ferociously. So I emailed Lucy with these words: CAPYBARA PIRATES, and Lucy said (paraphrasing) HELL YES LET’S GO, and we started plotting. That was back a year or so before Covid hit, if I recall correctly. And now, lo, these many years later, the first adventure of Monty and Lettice, Mr. Spruce and Mr. Slapdash, the glorious Captain Rackingbend and all the rest is coming your way in a matter of mere months. We can’t wait to show you!

Lastly, you can now preorder Seacritters! in both hardcover and paperback at all the usual suspects (Hardcover ISBN: 9781536220681; Paperback ISBN: 9781536220865). As ever, I recommend ordering through your local independent bookstore. Lucy and I will update you closer to release day with ways to get signed and personalized copies, as well as exciting Seacritters preorder goodies.

More to come…