User blog comment:Mrcharlton/YJS books may not be canon/@comment-71.114.230.148-20110527061300

If one wants to take the new "Price of Freedom" novel into account, the novel does explain how Jack, a son of a pirate, could have called Shipwreck Island his home in his early years while being a respectable merchantman later in life. (Going strictly by the films, there was never anything to indicate that Jack had been anything but a pirate. The burning of the Wench was background info given by the screenwriters.)

The book also allows room for the Jack Sparrow stories to take place, establishing Jack's early relationship with Tia Dalma, a departure from Shipwreck Island in his teens, and numerous references to undefined supernatural creatures and events Jack encountered during this time.

However, the book does contradict the series on a number of points, however. Jack encounters Davy Jones for the first time in his twenties in the book, for example. The author has indicated that she was aware of the books but did not read them.

Still, there is space enough in these waters for every story. The book Pirates of the Caribbean: The Secret Files of the East India Trading Company, written in-universe by an EITC agent, has a section on Jack's adventures as a lad. In it, the East India agent notes that Jack's adventures have been recorded by Rob Kidd. So the books we have may actually be in-universe books written by one Rob Kidd about Jack Sparrow's early life. Any contradictions between this series and the films or new novel can be explained as errors or deliberate exaggerations on the part of Jack or his chronicler.