‘It looks like lots of fun,’ Dad was trying to get Daniel and Emily excited about their adventure holiday.
‘It sounds lame,’ Emily yawned and looked out of the car window.
‘Don’t use that word, dear, it’s not nice,’ said their mother.
‘W’ever!’ Emily said.
Emily and Daniel are to spend a week at a holiday camp on a ship – the ‘Jolly Roger Pirate Adventure’. They are less thrilled than their parents who will spend the week at a luxury hotel. They arrive at the collection point on a beach and wait. They are collected by a pirate and his crew, but that’s about the only predictable part of their journey. The pirate has bad breath and a dripping wet beard, the parrot is called ‘Duckie’ and has no feathers. Even the crew don’t seem quite right. But Emily (confident and sophisticated) and Daniel (younger and a worrier) do have an adventure, even if it’s not quite the one the brochure led them to expect.
Captain Wetbeard, pirate, has a dicky back and likes to call his crew ‘scurvy brats’. Apart from being a recognisable pirate saying, it means he doesn’t really have to remember any names. He arrives at the beach when Emily and Daniel are due to be collected by Captain Funbeard for their week on ‘Jolly Roger’ and takes them to his ship instead. What follows rocks and rolls much like the ship at sea as Emily and Daniel find themselves in and out of trouble. The main characters in Captain Wetbeard are eleven and nine years old, but this story is likely to appeal to younger readers with its on- and off-board escapades. There’s also a hint in here that fun can sometimes be found in unexpected places. Recommended for mid-primary readers.
Captain Wetbeard, by Bruno Bouchet ill David Cox
ABC Kids 2008
ISBN: 9780733320705
This book can be purchased from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussireviews.