Usborne sails away with Jenny Pearson’s ‘major’ younger readers pirate-themed series

Middle-grade star Jenny Pearson is to move to younger readers with a pirate-themed “swashbuckling” adventure series for Usborne, aimed at ages seven to nine.

Rebecca Hill, Usborne fiction director, acquired world rights to the How Not to Be a Pirate series – which promises to be full of “humour, hazards and high-seas fun” – from Sam Copeland at RCW. The first title will launch in July 2026, backed by a “plunderful” marketing and publicity campaign, with the illustrator yet to be confirmed.

The first in the series centres around “not-quite-pirate” Wilbur, who does not think he is destined for pirate greatness as he gets seasick, hates heights and is too scared to fire a cannon. With shipmates Ellie and Gilbert he takes his Level One Pirate Training, in which the winning crew get the treasure and the losers are landlocked forever.  

Pearson has previously written eight standalone middle-grade books for Usborne since her 2019 debut, The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates (with illustrations by Rob Biddulph). Her titles have collectively sold 135,000 units in Britain and have been translated into 20 languages. Usborne said her move into the new age range “cements her as a top brand author” for the publisher. 

Hill said: “Jenny Pearson is a creative powerhouse. Over the last five years, Jenny has won the Laugh Out Loud Book Award, had two of her books selected as Waterstones Book of the Month, seen her titles shortlisted for many national book awards and won a legion of superfans. Therefore, I’m thrilled to be sailing new seas with her in How Not to Be a Pirate…[it’s] filled with irresistible humour, awesome characters and true heart. We know with Jenny at the helm this voyage is going to be unforgettable.”  

Usborne head of rights Louise Knight added that as Pearson is one of Usborne’s most successful authors internationally and that “pirates are always popular and with publishers looking for younger illustrated fiction, we’re ‘shore’ there will be lots of excitement [for the new series]”.