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!

Today we're taking flight, up to the highest height as we continue with our #ReadItMD13 theme week. We're taking a look at vehicles, whether they roll on land, fly through the air or skim through the sea (or under it!)

It's all about the planes today though, and we'll start off by looking at a former book of the week...

In "Zephyr Takes Flight" A young girl called Zephyr loves aeroplanes more than anything else in the world. When she's not collecting books and posters about them, she's making aeroplane models. One day she discovers a hidden room in her house filled to the brim with aeroplane plans and huge full scale planes to fly, and takes off on a flight of fancy to a far off land. Here, pigs fly - all except one poor little mite who hasn't earned his wings yet. Can Zephyr help?

It's a wonderful book, full of brilliant positive messages, fabulous planes of course, and one of the most engaging and charming female characters to grace a children's book in a long time. Perfect for your mini Amy Johnsons!

We're ramping up the pace for our next flight book - and we're not leaving the piggies behind just yet either...

Imagine an alternate universe where the three little pigs didn't mess around with building houses, but decided to take to the skies for an air race supreme. Of course, you can't have a three little pigs tale without a hungry wolf so mix all those ingredients together, fire up your jet engines and take a look at "Pigs Might Fly" by Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox. It's a high octane thrilling book as we see each pig building their aircraft then attempting to outwit that gnarly wolf in his fighter jet at the end. We absolutely loved this book!

Once again we can't have any vehicle round-ups without consulting "The master" so...

Richard Scarry's "A Day at the Airport" has consistently been one of Charlotte's favourite books and it's one of the first Richard Scarry books I bought her rather than passing them down to her. Here we meet old friends Huckle, Sally and Lowly as they enjoy a fun-packed day with Rudolf Von Flugel, air ace and owner of the coolest zeppelin on the planet - the infamous "Bratwurst Balloon" - He's even got an aeroplane car that seems to spend its entire time driving backwards, how cool is that? 

Like all Scarry books, it's chock full of detail and we love the running threads through the story (watch out for the piggy chasing his hat throughout the entire thing, wonderful!) 

A fantastic book if your little ones get excited about airports (sad that they'll grow out of that when they get to our age, eh?)

So that's it for our roundup in the skies - do you have any more aeroplane-based recommendations? If so, drop a comment in the box below or tweet at us @readitdaddy, we'd love to add them to our list!

We love cars and trucks and things that go though, so we're going to kick off our vehicular week with lots and lots of lovely wheels.

"Toot Toot Beep Beep" by Emma Garcia is a short but very sweet little book that shows off lots of different vehicles, and is illustrated in Emma's fabulous child-friendly 'cut out and paint' style (which makes it an utterly fabulous book to inspire you to make your own vehicles in a similar way!) All the cars and vans in a busy town all hit the road in style, and spend all day driving around. But what happens to cars at night?

It goes without saying that Charlotte loves the big pink stretch limo in this book, and I love the groovy green VW camper van (or possibly the red jeep). Fabulous characterful cars and vans, with a great bouncy story more suited to younger readers (but still excellent fun for five year olds too!)

Emma's other books are great, we also have...

"Tip Tip Dig Dig" which is brilliant for girls and boys who love their busy vehicles when they're shifting earth, rolling roads or tipping up. 

"Cars Galore" by Peter Stein and Bob Staake is most definitely our type of book. There are so many brilliant and crazy vehicles in this book with a fantastic rhyming story to accompany the inventive and zany designs Bob comes up with here. Crazy crocs driving pink limos, school buses packed with smiling kids, even a spooky funeral director's car, there's a ton to love about this book and it's chock full of lovely little details. 

The man who pretty much wrote the perfect whacky vehicles book is Richard Scarry. I mean who else could put corn-cob cars into his work, or cars shaped like pickles and crocodiles?

"Cars and Trucks and Things that Go" by Richard Scarry sets the bar ludicrously high for others to follow. The many animal characters all have their favourite methods of transport, and the book is fizzing with busy action and detail throughout. Again, if you had vehicles like these on the roads, surely it would make driving so much more pleasurable?

We'll end our mini roundabout roundup with a recent but utterly fabulous book...

"Dixie O'Day in the Fast Lane" was quite rightly book of the week recently, and it's not surprising! It's automotive perfection. Dixie and Percy zoom around in a fabulous Ford Zephyr, and though their car isn't the most reliable around, it's perfect for picnics and even the odd spot of racing. 

Dixie's neigbour, the rather caddish Lou Ella, always has the swishest car and the fanciest frocks - and is determined to stop at nothing when a local race event is announced. The format of this book, the exquisite storytelling and of course the brilliant and wonderful vehicles drawn so masterfully by Clara really make this a treat. 

We'd love to hear your recommendations - so please do pop a comment in the box below, and tell us which four (or more) wheeled favourites grace your bookshelves!