In a pirate/bedtime-story mash-up, a little girl resists sleeping until she realizes that some shut-eye will restore her “formidable oomph.”
Throughout the story, Monescillo’s digitally enhanced watercolors present a contemporary setting in which this family just happens to live a pirate’s life. Charlotte Jane relishes “swashbuckling sessions, treasure hunts, and Fantastic Feats of Daring.” Although she may be “finer than a ship full of jewels,” though, Charlotte Jane refuses to sleep. Her parents urge her to rest, but, curiously, they leave her to her own devices, and then “one dark night she didn’t go to bed at all.” The next spread shows her bleary-eyed and whispering “Victory!” at sunrise. Alas, the triumph is short lived once she realizes that exhaustion won’t let her go about her usual activities, and she announces, “Arr…My oomph’s weighed anchor.” She and her parents hunt for it as though searching for buried treasure, until Charlotte Jane spies her featherbed and acquiesces, waking rejuvenated from “hearty dreams” at book’s end.
While references to “juicy” living seem a bit cutesy and out of step with the pirate theme, the bedtime story is satisfying, and casting a little girl as a pirate is downright refreshing. (Picture book. 3-6)
