Interesting Female Pirate Version of Treasure Island

Re-telling a classic can be tricky, so author C.B. Lee is to be commended for taking on Treasure Island with her book A CLASH OF STEEL. I enjoyed the fact that there are youthful female characters who are emotionally strong and that even the head of the pirates is also a female. It has been so very long since I read Treasure Island that I am not sure how true to the classic the author’s remix is. It is possible that I would have enjoyed C.B. Lee's book a little more if I remembered details of Robert Louise Stevenson's original and could have done some mental comparisons as I read. The cover design of A Clash of Steel is certainly visually appealing. That said, I did not feel immediately drawn into the story. Even with the opening scene, I wondered if an eight-year-old child would truly have been that brave in such a severe storm out on the South China Sea. I can see this book appealing to middle grade readers, and it did not srike me as a YA book that is a strong crossover to adult readers.