Claw of the Dragon

Claw of the Dragon
Book no.	23
Series	My Australian Story
Also titled	Snatched by Pirates
Author	Patricia Bernard
Publisher	Scholastic Australia
Published	March 1, 2008
Pages	208
ISBN	9781865048611
Setting	Broome, Western Australia
Timeline	February 1899 – July 1900
Preceded by
Chronology	Escape from Cockatoo Island
Publication	Archer's Melbourne Cup
Followed by
Chronology	Plagues and Federation
Publication	Atomic Testing

Claw of the Dragon: The Diary of Billy Shanghai Hamilton is a historical fiction book written by Patricia Bernard. It is the twenty-third book in the My Australian Story series. The book was originally published in March 2008 and later reissued as Snatched by Pirates in June 2012. It was followed by Atomic Testing by Alan Tucker.

Book description

• Original
• Relaunch

"Billy Shanghai Hamilton has been blackbirded—snatched by pirates in the Torres Strait and forced to work on a pearling boat.
Greed for pearls drives men mad, and the seas are full of danger. Soon Billy is fighting for survival in a dangerous world of assassins, treasure hunters, deep-sea diving, underworld crime and mutiny."

"The perahu's crew is yelling in Malay for us to stop. Samuel is shouting that they are pirates and that they will rob us. I'm hiding my diary and pencil inside my shirt...
Billy Shanghai Hamilton has been blackbirded—snatched by pirates in the Torres Strait and forced to work on a pearling boat.
Greed for pearls drives men mad, and the seas are full of danger. Soon Billy is fighting for survival in a dangerous world of assassins, treasure hunters, deep-sea diving, underworld crime and mutiny."

Characters

Main article: List of Claw of the Dragon characters

• Billy Hamilton

Author

Main article: Patricia Bernard

Editions

Snatched by Pirates
My Australian Story reprint
9781741698459
(June 2012)

Acknowledgements

"Thank you to my editor Mark Macleod and to Di Leitch and Jean Indermaur of Broome Library; Di Emms and Jean Matchett of the Great Lakes Library; the Pigram Brothers for their wonderful, inspiring music lyrics; Marcelle, Shaila and David Morris, my readers; and to Colin Julin and my brilliant Shona and Marcelle for their computer skills, without which I could not survive."

Notes

• The portrait on both editions is a photograph of a boy licensed from Luke Bartholomew Tan Boon Kiat at iStock.
• The background of the second edition is a photograph titled Pearling boat at sea in North Queensland, 1899.

See also

My Australian Story navigation
← Publication → Archer's Melbourne Cup Atomic Testing ← Chronology → Escape from Cockatoo Island Plagues and Federation