Bedtime Buccaneers: Pajama Pirates by Andrew Kramer

THE MOON BEGINS ITS EVENING SHOW.
PAJAMA PIRATES YELL, "OH, NO!"

LET OTHERS SLEEP;
THEIR DAY IS DONE.
THE TREASURE HUNT HAS JUST BEGUN.

Three kids are ready for bed in their tower bedchamber, pajamas on and beds turned down, but they are definitely not ready for sleep. It's time to escape into their own fantasy adventures, pirates all!

The braided rug morphs into ocean waters, their beds become rowboats, and their brooms become oars, as the three row out to their waiting ship to begin their night's adventures.

And what adventures their imaginations afford them! A nearing ship turns out to be a marauder's man o' war and the attack is on. Cannons roar, swords flash; and it doesn't go well for the pajama pirates.

"YE BE SHARK BAIT, SWIM OR SINK!"
PAJAMA PIRATES STOP TO THINK.

Quickly the youngsters cover their shattered mast with their mainsail, and in the fog the pursuing privateers perceive a giant ghost advancing on them and begin to retreat in terror.

Just as the pajama pirates batten their hatches, hoist anchor, and pull away from their foes, they hear the dreaded order to go to sleep floating up from downstairs.

"JUST FIVE MINUTES MORE, PLEASE!"

But there's nothing for it except for the pajama pirates to walk the plank, as their seven seas become the sky and their ship again becomes their room, and one by one they fall into their own waiting beds.

"G'NIGHT, MATEYS! SURE WAS FUN!"

Andrew Kramer's latest, Pajama Pirates (Harper, 2010) features easy-reading verse in a charming fantasy adventure for pirate fans. The text is greatly extended by the delightful illustrations of Leslie Lammle, done with plenty of deep blues to suggest the nighttime setting, and rounded childlike figures which suggest the work of author-illustrators Astrid and Ingrid Lindgren of earlier times, giving the book a pleasant old-fashioned feeling. A fine bedtime story for imaginative young buccaneers who are not quite ready for sweet dreams.