Just in time for Talk like a Pirate Day (September 19, 2011), today’s post comes to us from Corinne Demas, author of Pirates Go to School. She had plenty to say about writing, school, and—you guessed it—pirates! Read on to find out where the idea for the book came from, some of her favorite pirate sayings, and more!

So head on down past the Jolly Roger and read on, me mateys! Yo ho!

Ahoy, mateys!

I live part of the year on Cape Cod, which has long been a major pirate hangout, so writing a book about pirates has always been something I’ve planned to do. Samuel Bellamy, whose pirate ship the Whydah was wrecked off the coast off Wellfleet in a storm in 1717, is one of my favorite real-life pirates. There’s a romantic legend that the reason he steered his ship too close to shore was because he was returning to his sweetheart in Wellfleet. History tells us that he didn’t survive the shipwreck, but I like to think that maybe he did. A lot of the Whydah’s treasure was recovered by underwater archaeologists and is now in a museum, but whenever I walk the beach in Wellfleet, I keep my eye out for pirate gold. When I kayak out on Pleasant Bay in Orleans, I always stop at Hog Island, an uninhabited island where, according to local tradition, the famous pirate Captain Kidd buried his booty at one end of the island, called Money Head. So far I’ve found some great shells on Hog Island, but no gold. But I’ll keep on looking!

My daughter and I were talking about unlikely things that pirates might do, and we started imagining what would happen if pirates went to school. And that’s how this book was born. I love rhyme (and kids do, too), and it seemed like the perfect medium for a story about a friendly band of pirates who join an elementary school classroom. I wanted to describe a regular school day but give ordinary activities a special pirate twist. (Who but a pirate would prefer slimy squid to peanut butter?) Although they may be pirates, at heart they’re just like other school kids: They love story time and show-and-tell, they get a time-out when they misbehave, and they learn how to clean up at the end of the school day. Civilized? Yes! But they’re still genuine pirates who smell of rotting fish and snore at naptime.

Of course I had to include some of my favorite pirate expressions, like “aaargh” (excellent to use when you stub your toe!), and since my pirates have their parrots along for the school day, everything they say is repeated. When I’ve read this book with groups of kids, I’ve found they all enjoy joining in with the closing lines of the book “Yo ho ho, we’re so cool/We are pirates and we love school.” What could be jollier than chanting “Yo ho ho”?

I’m hoping that kids will have fun imagining what school would be like if they had pirates for classmates, and letting their imagination play with other incongruous what-ifs. I also hope that kids who are less enthusiastic about school might be inspired by this energetic lot of pirates who relish every aspect of the school day. Now that these pirates have successfully begun their new school year, I’m having fun dreaming about where they might go next. Please send along your ideas!

Aye! Aye!

You can find Pirates Go to School in SeeSaw this September, both as a single title and part of the SeeSaw Picture Book & CD Library!

Tags: Authors, editorial, Picture Books, Reluctant Readers