The most memorable children’s books are beautifully designed with colorful pictures and prose that immerse you in the subject matter. Add rhyming lyrics and pirates you’ve got a real winner! Like this one.

Pirates, Ho!
written by Sarah L. Thomson
illustrated by Stephen Gilpin
Two Lions
October 2012

There is no story, per se, to this sing-songy celebration of pirates. It’s fun, well written and silly. The art is fantastically well done, with each hand drawn page (fully illustrated to the bleed point) exciting and detailed. My two boys, 6 and 3, have let me read this to them multiple times since I received it a few weeks ago and routinely sing along on the “We are pirates, pirates ho!”

My only one concern, and it is a minor one, is that the song veers oddly in to skeletons, ghosts and spooky dreams. As a father who reads to his children at night, this part could have been left out. Still, I’ve seen no ill effects (read: bad dreams) from reading the story.

A great book that is well made and highly recommended.

Scott Asher is the Editor-in-Chief of BookGateway.com. His personal blog is AshertopiA – a land flowing with milk and honey… and a lot of sticky people where he turns real life into stupid cartoons, writes on Christianity, Zombies, and whatever else he wants and posts Bible studies from his classes at church.

This book was provided by the publisher as a review copy.