An A to Z of Pirates by Caroline Stills and Heath McKenzie

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An A to Z of Pirates by Caroline Stills and Heath McKenzie

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Buy An A to Z of Pirates by Caroline Stills and Heath McKenzie at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Category: For Sharing
Rating: 4/5
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Reviewed by Ruth Ng
Summary: Ahoy there me hearties, it's a book full of rhyming pirate-y fun, Arrrrrrr! Learn all about pirates, from A to Z, then read it all over again to look for all the other hidden objects...
Buy? Yes Borrow? Yes
Pages: 24 Date: October 2011
Publisher: Little Hare
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1921714221

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Pirates! There seems to be, in my experience, an age at which almost every small child goes through a pirate phase. My daughter's certainly been there, to the extent that she had a full pirate costume, complete with a knitted parrot and a knitted eye patch (thank you Nanna!) that she'll happily wear around town. So if there's a little pirate in your life this is the sort of book they're going to thoroughly enjoy.

Told in rhyme it takes you through the pirate alphabet, everything from buccaneer to galleon to zephyr. I liked the variety of words they use, and the fact that they're not simple, easy words. There's a glossary at the back which lists some of the trickier words and gives their meanings which is helpful for older readers (and mums who aren't quite sure what a Doubloon is!) A whole alphabet of rhymes is a tiny bit trying on the grown up reading the book, well at least that's how I felt, but at least the rhymes involved weren't too clunky.

The illustrations are lots of fun, with the pirates all looking like cheeky children dressing up. There's plenty of colour and action-packed pictures to pore over. The extra treat with this book is that you can come back to it time and again to play a sort of game, a little like treasure hunting yourself. On each page the illustrations include pictures of items beginning with the relevant letter for that page. So on the 'O' page there's an orangutan, an octopus, and ostrich, and oven, an onion...You can spend quite some time going from page to page trying to find all the different things (and for the OCD amongst us there's a helpful list at the back of all the items, so you know that you haven't missed any!) I didn't even notice these things on our first read through and only thought occasionally that some of the pictures seemed a little unusual! It's a lot of fun to hunt the items, and helps with letter recognition. The only letter I was sure about was R which is Rum! We read R is for a tot of rum, our favourite pirate drink. But don't gulp it down too much at once, or it might make you sink.! Fortunately I've had no drinks requests yet for a tot of rum, but it's surely only a matter of time...!

A fun book, with plenty to return to time and again. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

Further reading suggestion: For more pirate fun try Class Three All At Sea by Julia Jarman and Lynne Chapman

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Buy An A to Z of Pirates by Caroline Stills and Heath McKenzie at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy An A to Z of Pirates by Caroline Stills and Heath McKenzie at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
Buy An A to Z of Pirates by Caroline Stills and Heath McKenzie at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy An A to Z of Pirates by Caroline Stills and Heath McKenzie at Amazon.com.

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