Be buyin' this book or be walkin' the plank!

"Read to me," says the Wee Bairn. "Something new."

Actually, she's not so wee these days—she's six years old and will start first grade in the fall—but happily, she hasn't outgrown the need to have someone read to her. So we go through the picture book shelves together, looking for something new to read.

She passes up The Chinese Siamese Cat and a version of Rapunzel since we've already read them. She's not old enough for the Oscar Wilde stories, and the cover of Unicorn Books' version of Phantom of the Opera scares her. Finally her eyes light on a thin, brownish book with the picture of a scurvy pirate muttering, "Avast! Yer lookin' at me?!" from the cover.

"Read this one!" she says, and begins jumping around.

So once the spontaneous jumping session is over and we're comfy on the couch, it's time to crack open the book—which sports the rather ostentatious title of Everything I Know About Pirates: A Collection of Made-Up Facts, Educated Guesses & Silly Pictures About Bad Guys of the High Seas.

And unlike most books with rambling titles, it actually lives up to its promise.

You can tell author/illustrator Tom Lichtenheld has a background in graphic design and advertising. You can also tell he doesn't take himself or anything else too seriously, right from the dust jacket ("Ages 4 to 8—Adult readers must be accompanied by a minor"). He knows what makes kids giggle, because he hasn't forgotten what it is to BE a kid. In fact, this book has the same quality of those fifth-grade book reports you desperately cobbled together from spit and wild guesses around 1 a.m. of the day they were due—even though you'd only read the back cover blurb and about half the first chapter of the book in question. Lichtenheld makes sure we're aware from the first page that he doesn't know ONE BLESSED THING about real pirates, but much like your humble reviewer, ignorance of his subject isn't going to slow him down any.

You'll learn all kinds of fascinating-if-useless pseudo-information about pirates in this book—that you shouldn't be overly afraid of pirates with hand-hooks or eye patches, since it just means they're clumsy; that some pirates have long curly mustaches which they keep in shape by using ear wax; that they often carry knives in their mouths, although this practice is frowned upon by the American Dental Association; that pirates use the inside of the pointy poker bit at the front of the ship as peg leg storage; and that pirate treasure usually consists of gold coins, jewelry and high-end Japanese electronics. I'll leave you to guess how many "poop deck" jokes there are. ("Stop giggling. It's not what you think," writes Lichtenheld.)

There's also a handy Pirate Name Chart to pick out your secret pirate name (just call me Blue Tooth Bonny) so you can look convincing at the next pirate convention, and an Official Pirate Glossary so you can look up once and for all where the goofy name "Jolly Roger" came from. It's the ultimate pirate fake book!

The Wee Bairn finds all this stuff endlessly amusing. She particularly likes the bit about pirates loving to eat fish fingers, with an accompanying picture of a fish warning a pirate to "Keep your hands off my fingers, bub!" I suspect I'll be reading Everything I Know About Pirates to her on many occasions in future. Good thing it's just as amusing to me as it is to her.

Avast, matey.

All material displayed on this website is © 2001-2010 by S. B. Houghton, writing under the alias "The Pirate King." All rights reserved.
Don't be pinchin' me stuff! To quote reviews or purchase reprint rights, .