Before school begins, swap out your last few days of
vacation for time in your imagination. These pirate tales can take you along on
adventures, and make you laugh or think. Whether it’s a day at the beach or on
board, there’s still time for summertime magic. If your fantasy is to sail into
the sunset, feast your fancy on these books of wonder.
Maggie and the Pirate
by Ezra Jack Keats
In
this haunting story, Maggie lives with her parents “in an old bus they made
into a home.” They use boats or rafts to get to “town,” an unusual collection
of buildings on stilts. A boy stranger, who calls himself a pirate and has
built an odd tree house in the swamp, steals Maggie’s beloved cricket in his
cage. She and her friends go on a hunt to find Nikki. Sadly, during the
struggle to retrieve him, the cricket drowns.
Award
winner Keats is famous for developing a lovely illustration style that mixes
collage, silhouette and watercolor. In addition to the beautiful paintings, the
simple text and the language of loss and reconciliation enhance the depth of
this book. The concluding friendships formed from this profound tale of loss
leave a lingering effect of sweetness without overpowering readers or
listeners.
Scholastic, Interest
Level: Kindergarten – Grade 2
Roger the Jolly
Pirate by Brett Helquist
Roger
is a lousy pirate. The other buccaneers on his ship give him the unkind
nickname of Jolly Roger. “When there is serious pirating” to do, they send him
below deck.
This
happens again when their only notable opponent, the “Admiral” with his band,
attacks. Roger, who wants to win his shipmates approval, decides to bake a cake
in a cannon he thinks is a pot. The resulting explosion blows Roger on deck in
a cloud of flour, smoke, and gunpowder soot, shrieking like a banshee. The
Admiral’s crew doesn’t stay long enough to realize he’s neither skeleton nor
ghost.
This
is a wacky story with double-page spreads of wild and crazy battle scenes, and
contrasting close-up views of faces and ships on the high seas.
Author/illustrator Helquist grabs attention with his ability to craft
high-motion images. A chicken companion and his grin with a gap distinguish
Roger from the scowls of the other pirates.
In appreciation, Roger’s shipmates
make a flag in his honor, now known as the “Jolly Roger.” Music and words for
“The Ballad of the Jolly Roger” are included at the end.
HarperCollins, $6.99
(paperback)
Interest Level: Grades 1-3
Captain Jack and the
Pirates by Peter Bently
Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
Rollicking
rhythm and rhyme attracts listeners’ interest. The “brave mariners three” use
their imaginations to build a pirate ship from sand at the beach. Buckets for
cannons, shirts for the mainsails, an inflatable ring and they are off “through
oceans unknown!”
An
enemy pirate ship is up ahead, but a storm on the sea brings down the sail,
collapses the ship and sends a “man overboard!” They explore the “island” where
the “enemy pirates” are shipwrecked too. The “treasure” they discover is a
bountiful table of “booty.” Sandwiches,
cupcakes and soda pop draw them to the heavily laden table.
A beguiling mix of watercolor
paintings is intermingled with smaller pencil drawings. Much beloved
illustrator Oxenbury uses her award-winning talents to show the sunlit day
changing to a “tropical gale.” And the contrast between the huge pirate ship
with its eye patch pirates and the small sand boat with its tiny buccaneers
could not be more imposing.
When a voice says, “Caught you!”
The “buccaneers” give in without a struggle, getting dried off by caring
parents with clean clothes. The final double page spread is a view of three
happy boys/pirates companionably licking ice cream cones.
Dial, $17.99
Interest
Level: Pre-Kindergarten – Kindergarten
More Pirate Tales:
The Pirate Queen
by Emily Arnold McCully
Putnam, Interest
Level: Grade 2-3
Lilly and the Pirates
by Phyllis Root
Illustrations by Rob Shepperson
Boyds Mills Press, $8.95
(paperback)
$16.95 (hardcover) Interest Level: Grade 3
Pirates Don’t Change
Diapers by Melinda Long
Illustrated by David Shannon
Harcourt, $16.99
Interest Level: Pre-Kindergarten – Grade 3
No comments:
Post a Comment