PIRATES, HO!

“A skull keeps watch from our flag of bones. / Our swords are steel and our hearts are stone / as we send our foes to Davy Jones. / We are pirates, pirates, ho!” Bold talk from this crew of scurvy sea-dogs (“Peg-Leg Tom and Angus Black, / Dreadful Nell and One-Eyed Jack”), but let the sun go down and bare mentions of ghosts and cursed ships in the night sends them all scurrying to their hammocks, “hidden from shadows, safe in our beds, / with blankets pulled tight over our heads.” The illustrations are a mismatch for the rousing rhyme, however; showing more grins than glowers, the bland, very clean cartoon pirates in Gilpin’s nautical scenes look less like brigands than teachers and kids in costume. Budding buccaneers will respond more heartily to the equally vulnerable but leering knaves in the likes of Bill Harley’s Dirty Joe the Pirate (2008), illustrated by Jack E. Davis, or Melinda Long’s How I Became a Pirate (2003), illustrated by David Shannon. (Picture book. 6-8)