A Pirate's Night Before Christmas

by Philip Yates, Sebastiá Serra (Illustrator)

Overview

Young mateys will find plenty of holiday joy in this humorous, colorful, and thoroughly piratical version of the beloved Clement C. Moore classic. On this ship of mischievous brigands—who have visions of treasure chests, not sugarplums, dancing in their heads—you wouldn’t expect a visit from nice St. Nick. Instead, here comes Sir Peggedy, with his peg leg and hook arm, cracking his whip and driving eight giant seahorses: Salty, Scurvy, Sinbad, Mollie, Cutthroat, Cross-Eyes, Roger, and Jolly.
Philip Yates’ rollicking rhymes and Sebastià Serra’s sprightly, fun-filled pictures—featuring whimsically multicolored seahorses, stockings hung on the ship’s bowsprit with tar, child-friendly pirates, and a complete treasure map—turn this Christmas perennial into a jubilant celebration!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402795626
Publisher:	Union Square & Co.
Publication date:	12/12/2011
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	2 - 18 Years

About the Author

Philip Yates lives in Austin, TX, and works in the Austin Public Library system. He has written for Disney Adventures Magazine and his first picture book was the highly acclaimed Ten Little Mummies. Philip has also written several other books for Sterling, including A Pirate’s Twelve Days of Christmas, and the humor books, The Biggest Joke Book in the World and World’s Silliest Jokes, which he coauthored with Matt Rissinger. 
 
Sebastià Serra hails from Barcelona, Spain, where he studied Fine Arts at the Universitat de Barcelona. He is an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared in magazines and on television. Sebastià has illustrated a number of picture books in Spain and in the US, including A Pirate’s Twelve Days of Christmas by Philip Yates and Inky's Great Escape by Casey Lyall. His work has also been displayed in exhibitions all over the world, including the US, Italy, Japan, China, and Korea. You can find him online at sebastiaserra.com.

Editorial Reviews

Yo-ho, ho, ho, ye landlubbers! Can that be Santa Claus with a black suit, skull-shaped earring and one shiny, gold tooth? And are those seahorses pulling a shell-shaped sleigh instead of reindeer? Aargh! Sir Peggedy's the name, pirating's the game, and a pitch-perfect parody is the definition of this witty take on the classic Christmas poem that will have pirate fans rolling on the poop deck with laughter. As narrated by a little redheaded pirate boy watching from aboard the Black Sark, the expertly rhymed text is packed full of pirate jargon and symbols, cleverly interwoven into the familiar lines that beg to be read aloud in rousing fashion. Serra's busy illustrations capture the pirate antics with a modern, moody edge, and a glossary defines all the pirate terms for little pirate wannabes. In the manner of many a pirate character, however, Sir Peggedy has a peg leg, an eye patch and a hook replacing one hand like Captain Hook, piratical literary conventions that may be seen as making light of legitimate disabilities. (Picture book. 4-9)

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for A Pirate's Night Before Christmas
 
“The robust verse sails along with gusto . . . ” —The Horn Book Magazine

“[A] pitch‑perfect parody . . . the expertly rhymed text is packed full of pirate jargon . . . that beg[s] to be read aloud in rousing fashion.” —Kirkus Reviews
 

From the Publisher