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.

Sleep Hearty, Ye Buckos! Charlotte Jane Battles Bedtime by Myra Wolfe

I LIKE TO GET ALL THE JUICE OUT OF MY DAY," CHARLOTTE JANE WOULD SAY.

BUT BEDTIME WAS NOT JUICY.

"NO ONE CAN BE HEARTY WITHOUT IT," SAID HER MOTHER.

CHARLOTTE JANE DID NOT AGREE.

ONE DARK NIGHT SHE DIDN'T GO TO BED AT ALL.

But although the swashbuckling Charlotte Jane would like to celebrate sending bedtime to the bottom of the briny, her morning doesn't dawn with as much oomph as usual. Her customary breakfast of cackle fruit doesn't tempt her. Cutlass competition with her bear, One-Eyed Tom, is, shall we say, dull. Treasure hunts are, well, a yawn, and Fantastic Feats of Derring-Do are a snooze.

"ARR!" SAID CHARLOTTE JANE. "MY OOMPH'S WEIGHED ANCHOR."

Aye, her swashbuckling style has sailed. Her pirating parents offer to mount a mission to find her oomph. But it's definitely not in the bathtub or linen closet. It's not to be found in the fridge and nowhere in the neighbor's recycling bin. Charlotte Jane wearily climbs the suddenly steep steps to her room in the fo'c'sle to search for her juicy joie de vivre.

AND THERE WAS HER FEATHERBED.

BEDTIME WAS NOT JUICY. SLEEP WAS FOR LANDLUBBERS.

BUT DREAMS...

CHARLOTTE JANE'S DREAMS...

...WERE RIP-ROARERS!

All's well that sleeps well, and with a good night's rest under her buccaneer's belt, Charlotte Jane finds her oomph restored in Myra Wolfe's bodacious debut book, Charlotte Jane Battles Bedtime (Harcourt, 2011), forthcoming September 6. This is a hearty corsairing bedtime tale, bejeweled with artwork by Maria Moneschillo, whose stylized seafaring illustrations sets our jibs just right to catch the wind. It seems we can never have too many pirate yarns in the picture book market, and this one, perhaps paired with Andrew Kramer's Pajama Pirates (recently reviewed here) will help young pirates get their YARR-YARRS out without too many bedtime battles. A sleepy-time treasure!

Things That Go Bump in the Night: Small Blue and the Deep Dark Night by Jon Davis

SMALL BLUE THOUGHT OF CREEPY THINGS.

"GREMLINS AND GOBLINS, WITH EMPTY, RUMBLING BELLIES,

LICKING THEIR LIPS, WAITING FOR ME IN THE DARK!"

"BIG BROWN! BIG BROWN!" SHE CALLED.

Small Blue, a rabbity young thing, awakens in the middle of the night and thinks of terrible night visitors.

Big Brown, a rumpled sleepy-eyed brown bear, comes into her room, pats her head, and suggests that the things she imagines could just have likely been a "delightful doggies' unicycle convention!"

Little Blue doesn't think so, but when Big Brown turns on the light, there's nothing to see but her cozy room, toys scattered on the floor and books neatly shelved. Big Brown suggests they share cups of hot milk and talk about it all.

But the hall is dark, and Small Blue is sure that furry spiders and flappity bats are skulking there. Big Brown suggests perhaps a "smily spacemen's zero-gravity shindig" in progress instead.

"WELL, MAYBE..." SAID SMALL BLUE.

Big Brown hoists Little Blue to his shoulders as they head into the kitchen, where Little Blue opines that witches with warts and clacking skeletons await her. Big Brown adds an alternative: there could be ex-pirates sitting and  knitting socks at their yearly convention.

Small Blue admits that that could be true.

A flip of the light switch reveals just a homey and tidy tiled kitchen in soft chartreuse and yellow. Big Brown settles down with Little Blue in his lap, and as they sip their milk, they watch the moon and stars in the dark sky outside the window. Little Blue is getting into the spirit of things.

"MAYBE THE STARS ARE RUNNING A RELAY RACE AROUND THE MOON, WHILE THE PLANETS CHEER THEM ON," SAYS LITTLE BLUE....

From time immemorial, kids have wakened with night terrors of ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and all things that go bump in the night. Jon Davis' new book, Small Blue and the Deep Dark Night (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), takes a look at the flipside of the bedtime willies by suggesting that if we can conjure up scary critters, we can just as surely imagine silly stuff as well.

Davis sketches the perfect setting for this gentle tale, with his worried and wrinkly little rabbit and his rounded, rumply big brown bear, who, rather than ridiculing the youngster's imaginings, simply tops them with preposterous tall tale possibilities. The artist's backgrounds are homey and reassuring, done in a palette of pinkish browns and soft greens and grays and wiggly, broken black line, and his characters, even the imagined ones, are a bit retro, rather reminiscent of Herriman's Krazy Kat cartoon style, with just a hint of Pooh and Piglet's adventures--all calculated to banish the night terrors for young readers. This is a fine "bednight" story for young children to help keep the things that go bump in the night at bay.

Live at Five! Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins by James Dean

Five painted pumpkin heads... were planted on a gate!

Along with Pete the Cat... on Halloween!

Never a cat to miss a big event, Pete joins some friendly pumpkin heads, decorated as pirates, a vampire pumpkin, and one Frankenhead.

The first pumpkin on the gate takes note that it's late, and the the second points out witches flying through the air. The third pumpkin doesn't have a care, the fourth pumpkin proposes a run, and the fifth and last suggests that they try to have some fun. They're off, on a roll--on five skateboards, with Pete sharing his own board with a pirate pumpkin with an eye patch.

OOOOH! WENT THE WIND

OUT WENT THE LIGHTS!

AND THE FIVE LITLE PUMPKINS,

ROLLED OUT OF SIGHT.

The popular poem, "Five Little Pumpkins" is a preschool Halloween staple for youngsters learning to count from one to five, and James Dean's Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins (Harper, 2015) teaches tots to count from one to five as the five jolly jack o' lanterns join the witches, ghosts, vampires, and bats on All Hallow's Eve. Dean's familiar faux naif style is not displaced by the creepy crowd one bit, and Pete the Cat is definitely "walking in his red shoes" for this one.

But if you have planned a holiday-ish class reading circle or a festive bedtime read, you're going to need a few more books as back-up for this short and sweet fare. On the other hand, the limited but rhythmic text and rockin' rhymes make it a natural for emergent readers to read solo to themselves.

Share this one with a review of the countdown in Marcia Vaughn's vivacious Five Pesky Pumpkins: A Counting Book with Flaps and Pop-Ups!, whose five Jack o' Lanterns make their disappearances with a great deal more drama, and Margaret McNamara's classroom classic, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? (Mr. Tiffin's Classroom Series), (read review here). And have a pumpkin at hand for Halloween carving!

Latest Buzz: Buzz Boy and Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold

ONE NIGHT BUZZ SAID, "I MADE A BOOK.

WE ARE SUPER HEROES!"

"HEROZZZZ?" SAID FLY GUY.

After his first venture into romance in his top-selling Fly Guy Meets Fly Girl and his Geisel Award-winning appearance in Hi! Fly Guy (Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Book (Awards)) wouldn't any talking housefly/pet be feeling invincible?

Well, Tedd Arnold's stars of the beginning reader galaxy are back again in his new Buzz Boy And Fly Guy (Scholastic, 2010), in which the indomitable two become super herozzz whose mission is to reclaim their property and destroy a dragon--or, in Fly Guy's own words ....

"TIME TO TAKE CARE OF BUZZ-NESS!"

It all begins at bedtime, when Buzz the Boy beds down with his best buddy, Fly Guy. But it's not sleepytime yet for the two friends. Buzz pulls out his own graphic novel starring the dynamic duo, in which Buzz shrinks to the size of his pet fly and--SHAZAM! POW! WHAM! Buzz becomes.... BUZZ BOY! Dragons? NO SWEAT!! Pirates? NO PROBLEM!

With this dynamic musca domestica duo on the job, the world is made safe for a boy and his fly, and at last it's time for...beddy bye for Buzz and Fly Guy. It's all good fun in the inimitable Tedd Arnold style, and his ever-popular googly-eyed guy and his fly remain the super heroes of early reading skills. Don't buzz off any time soon, boys!