Buccaneers by the Letter: Twenty-Six Pirates: An Alphabet Book by David Horowitz

PIRATE FRANK WALKS THE PLANK.

PIRATE GRANT... CAN'T!

This crew of corsairs appears in alphabetical order. Some of them make like marauders, while some maintain good guy status: Brad was born to be bad and Xavier displays improper behavior, but Hal is everyone's pal, and all the crew likes Ike. And then there's Pirate Lee, who needs to... er, go to the little pirate's room pronto.

David Horowitz' latest, Twenty-six Pirates: An Alphabet Book rides the high Cs with internally rhyming couplets that feature boy heroes doing all the things a bunch of boys might do--snorkeling with the fishes, sword fighting on the stern of the ship, diving cannonballs with big splashes, even missing Mommy--named alphabetically until at last Pirate Quaid (mistakes were made) scuttles the ship, sending it settling toward Davy Jones' locker at the bottom of the briny. Horowitz's comical collages of construction paper cutouts, with an artful use of colored pencil, give this book a stylish modern take on the venerable abecedarius--a far YARRRRR! from the traditional A Is For Apple, B Is For Bear alphabet book. As Kirkus quips, "Aye mateys, heave-ho with this bounty of pirate silliness!"

Pair this one with its sister ship, Horowitz' Twenty-six Princesses: An Alphabet Story for a pretty-in-pink alphabetic alternative for girls.

Can't Sink Me! The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristing Kladstrup

It was Christmas and Jim and Mother were making gingerbread men.

"Let's make a pirate crew," said Jim, and so they did.

The Captain had a gingerbread cutlass and a peg leg made from a toothpick. Jim loved him best of all.

"You'd better leave some pirates out for Santa Claus to eat," said his mother.

"NOT Captain Cookie!" said Jim.

But upstairs, propped in the place of honor by Jim's bed, Captain Cookie begins to worry about his crew downstairs.

"Where's my crew?" he wondered. And who's this Santa Claus who wants to eat them?

Downstairs Captain Cookie finds two members of his crew, Dots and Wavy, adorning the tree, and dodges a mouse who nibbles the business end off of his cutlass. And then there's the threat of that "cannibal Santa Claus." Will he eat his whole crew, held captive in a large jarlike brig? With no cannons, a broken cutlass, and a disabled crew, what's a pirate captain to do?

But then a big man in a red suit appears and gives Captain Cookie what he wants most--a pirate ship and crew all his own under the tree. It's a yarr-y Christmas after all for the confused Captain Cookie and his perplexed but piquant pirate crew.

Kristin Kladstup's latest, The Gingerbread Pirates, (Candlewick, 2009) is just the thing to spice up your Yuletide story time this Christmas.

And for a Yule tale that will really get yer YARRRs out, there's always Philip Yates' clever and comical A Pirate's Night Before Christmas. My 2008 review of this corsair's Christmas yarrr-n can be seen here.