Author: Alan Jardine
Illustrator: Jimmy Pickering
One-Sentence Plot Summary: A boy and his grandpa encounter pirates and overcome them while sailing on the sea.
The defining characteristic of this book is that it is a re-write of the famous Beach Boys song of the same name. In fact, the author is Alan Jardine, one of the original Beach Boys. He tweaked the words to the song quite a bit, to take out all the references to being drunk, and instead made it an adventure story with a happy ending.
The plot suffers at times because it is, after all, a poem. But the story is easy enough to follow and has a nice, although brief, conflict with the pirates.
The amount of creativity and imagination in this book is mostly found by listening to the accompanying CD that Jardine recorded of the song. The kids loved dancing and jumping around, and turning the pages to follow along.
The pictures are very good, especially the pirate and his ever-changing hat. The closing picture of the boat on the sea with the sun rising is excellent.
Rating: 4 stars
Worth Getting from the Library: Yes
Worth Buying: No
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