Pirate & Penguin: A Hilarious Adventure for Young Readers

The sofa cushions. It was between, under or even down in that crevice on the sides of the sofa where the cushion meets the 2 x 4. It’s the area where you realize that a sofa is just a piece of furniture combining lumber, fabric and springs, but also sucks in things that you didn’t know you didn’t want to misplace. Pirate & Penguin was in our metaphorical sofa cushion, except in our case, it’s a real, physical object in the form of a bookshelf. It’s worth mentioning now, even though it’s been stuck in the sofa cushions for a year and a half, because this is the book my six or seven-year-old self would’ve gone mental over.

Pirate & Penguin is funny, loud, and has bright, happy artwork and the pirate book that those early elementary school boys didn’t know that they needed. It’s ridiculous premise is also one that elementary school boys will be hard pressed to ignore. A surly pirate with a beard down to his knees is sailing the seven seas and a penguin falls onto his pirate ship from a nearby iceberg. The pirate has been looking for a parrot, so he assumes that this tuxedo-looking bird is a sign that his wishes have been granted.

The pirate knows this parrot looks very odd, so he gathers some typical parrot colors, like blue, red and yellow and proceeds to paint the bird. Parrots also sit on the shoulders of pirates. But when this parrot tries to fly up, or climb in this case to the pirate’s shoulders, he ends up scratching his face and spreading the paint all over the hook-handed captain. The result is some Steve Penley painting that even coats the pirate’s underwear.

Undaunted by this strange parrot, the pirate attempts to get it to say typical words used in their profession, like ‘landlubber’ or ‘batten down the hatches.’ This parrot tries, but is only able to utter a ‘HONK’, that can be heard for leagues and ends up blowing the pirate down. Eventually the pirate parrot penguin does something correct and receives a cracker from the pirate. Our flightless bird spits the cracker out, which offends the pirate and causes the little visitor to walk the plank. With the part-time parrot in the water, the pirate is riddled with guilt, until the penguin pops up on the boat again with a fish in its hand. The hungry pirate is thankful for the food and promptly grills it up before sailing off into the sunset.  

Pirate & Penguin is an illustrated book that speaks to pre-k through second grade boys in a way that they didn’t know a book could speak to them. It’s got the vibrant colors that grab my attention. The book has so much energy that it feels like the penguin is going to waddle off of the pages onto my lap. It’s very funny and easy to read-why can’t more books be like this?

Kids might not realize why, or how the book manages to be so entertaining. There are some adults who know that it has something to do with Die Hard. That classic Bruce Willis film and Pirate & Penguin both take place in a linear, almost real-time fashion. The penguin/parrot falls onto the boat, the pirate’s comic misinterpretation of what it is and the reveal of when they become friends happens in-line with Nakitomi Plaza. In this book there’s no Hans Gruber, it’s just an over-the-top pirate who wants something to be, that cannot. The events on the pages start small and build to a full-page crescendo of pirate yelling frustration. It’s very funny. Adults will like the humor and pacing that this book reads aloud at. Kids will like the colors, illustrations, humor, and the fact that it feels like a comic book, yet is a very funny, illustrated book. Either way you look at it Pirate & Penguin is a win/win for pre-k through second grade kids and the adults who might read it. In other news, proving that this really was in my metaphorical couch, Pirate & Penguin: 2 Few Crew was released in September 2024.

Pirate & Penguin is by Mike Allegra with illustrations by Jenn Harney and is available on Page Street Kids book.

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