THE CASTAWAY PIRATES

Suitably rollicking verse describes the travails of a crew of pirates whose boat has sprung a leak. Desperately they try to plug it as a shark draws ever nearer, the doomful refrain repeating with each spread: “it’s way-hey-ho and down we go!” Each page turn reveals a tableau that opens easily to give readers a three-dimensional look at each phase of the ship’s sinking. The penultimate spread features a toothy shark gobbling the various items the pirates have thrown into the breach—“Now, would he eat them, too?” The subtitle gives readers a hint. Between the rhyme and the ease of opening, this should prove popular with piratically minded preschoolers. (Pop-up/picture book. 3-6)