Pirates Poetry Preview

For yer Poetry Friday Roundup, a sneak peek at me fall pirate book Shiver Me Timbers (Beach Lane), with pirate paintings by Robert (Scallywag) Neubecker, has already pillaged  starrrred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal (see below). Here be a preview fer all you landlubbers called The Pirates Code of Conduct. Me spies tell me that Poetry Friday is hosted at Life is Better with Books.

The Pirates' Code of Conduct

Don't take a bath.
Avoid all math.
It's best to yell
And blessed to smell.
Act rash and rude.
Dash down yer food.
Be sure to slurp
And belch and burp.
Take lots of naps.
Hide all yer maps.
Dismay, Disrupt,
And interrupt.
Rob, steal, and loot,
But don't get cute.
Tell lots of lies.
Make alibis.
Don't change yer clothes.
Yell, "That she blows!"
Pirate poem from Shiver me Timbers copyright 2012 by Douglas Florian
Pirate illustration from Shiver Me Timbers copyright 2012 by Robert Neubecker

School Library Journal (next month)
  FLORIAN, Douglas. Shiver Me Timbers!: Pirate Poems & Paintings. illus. by Robert Neubecker. 32p. CIP. S & S/Beach Lane Bks. Aug. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-1-4424-1321-4; ebook $12.99. ISBN 978-1-4424-5712-6. LC 2010048963.

Gr 2-5–From the smiling, rollicking kids on the cover laying claim to a beach full of treasure to the shipload of fierce, sneering, plundering, cutlass-waving, face-making buccaneers, boastful of their scurrilous behavior, these pirates are a motley group. In 19 poems, they teach “Pirate Patter” and punishment and describe some less-than-appetizing meals at sea; their penchant for stealing, burying, and sometimes losing track of treasure; and their weapons. To hear them tell it, they’re “...rude, crude dudes with attitudes” who practice growling–“Arrr!”–and “…love to try to make you cry.” “A pirate’s life is not for me!” says the young bloke rowing away from the ship under a starry sky. The up- and downsides of life on a pirate ship are evident in Neubecker’s bold, colorful, detail-filled cartoonlike illustrations, outlined in India ink. Kids, boys especially, will be charmed by these feisty poems.–Susan Scheps, formerly at Shaker Heights Public Library, OH