Pirate Boy was published by Holiday House in 2011. It was written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Julie Fortenberry.
Danny and his mother are reading a book together on the sofa. Danny talks in a hypothetical way to his mother about being on the pirate ship and the mother comes up with one good response after another. By the end Danny asks whether they can be on a beach with dad...
After reading the book, Runaway Bunny, the structure of some children’s book stories really hasn’t changed much over time.
The mother has to respond quickly to her child in the story. We’ve all seen this kind of children’s book before except the various situations really didn’t excite me... that magic spray that the mother uses is a pretty lame tool.
The illustrator makes good use of the pages as only the first and finally pages are one page illustrations. The artwork was painted with Adobe Photoshop but besides the barrels on one page, the drawings are fairly well done. I have to admit this but the pirates really aren’t very scary looking...
Well, children who read Pirate Boy might think about what it’s like to go on a pirate ship and maybe they can realize that there is “no place like home” by the end.
