#ReadItMD13 Theme Week - "Toot Toot Beep Beep Vehicles a-plenty" - Messing about in boats!

Our header image is the cover of Cornelia Funke and Kersin Meyer's wonderful "Pirate Girl" - In fact you'll probably notice that most of the books we've seen on the blog that have boats in them often also have pirates in them too! This book is brilliant, with a flame-haired and wonderful heroine at its heart (who inspired Charlotte to dress up as her during last year's school book week). She has a rather nifty little boat called Molly with fab bedsheet sails. A neat twist on the "red riding hood" story theme, but feeling wholly original and wonderful. 

 We recently took a look at "Tim in Danger" by Edward Ardizzone - one of a series of reprints of the "Tim, Charlotte and Ginger" adventure books by a seriously talented author-illustrator. We learn that life aboard ship isn't all it's cracked up to be and can be very hard work - and fog is definitely not welcome! (As I type this, it's definitely not sailing weather, I can barely see across the park if I look out of the window!)

We wouldn't dare write a feature about boats, ships or pirates without mentioning one of our all-time favourite picture books, "The Pirates Next Door" by Jonny Duddle. A well-deserved book of the week, it tells the tale of a young girl who lives a fairly boring life in Ennui-on-Sea. Until, that is, the Jolley Rogers turn up in a huge pirate ship and move into the vacant house next door. It probably is a bit of a cheat to feature this in a boat-based round up but it has a wonderful amphibian car on the cover, and of course a wonderful pirate ship filled with one of the craziest pirate families you could ever hope to meet. Endlessly re-read by us, wonderfully entertaining - and if you get the version with the story CD you get to hear Jonny reading you the story! 

(Look out also for Jonny's "The Pirate Cruncher" which is also brilliant, and also has a rather fetching pirate ship in it - at least until it meets a rather sticky end).

No pirates in our next book but plenty of nautical excitement to be had in "The Snorgh and the Sailor" by Will Buckingham and Thomas Docherty. The Snorgh is a grumpy and lonely little creature who leads a fairly solitary life, enjoying samphire soup and keeping himself to himself. That is, until, a sailor invites himself in and stays the night - detailing all the adventures he's been on in his life. Once you hear about adventure, you feel like having one yourself - so the Snorgh gives chase in his leaky bath tub to catch up with the sailor and finish the story!

If you love messing about in boat-based books, do drop us a comment and let us know your favourites!