Captain No Beard Strangers on the High Seas by Carole P Roman Review
Reviewed by Jenny Seymour
Once again I was lucky enough to be able to review a Carol P Roman book. I have previously reviewed her series “If you were me and lived in…” – an educational series about cultures all around the world and the Captain No Beard series is no different – each story, whilst engaging and fun, has an educational message.
This particular story seeks to warn children about how to treat strangers and also, not to judge a book by its cover!
The front cover and artwork are very colourful and inviting and the whole range follows the same format. Great Illustrations, which totally capture the essence of the books for pre-schoolers and KS1 children.
This series of books are for young early readers and are fabulous for engaging children and encouraging discussions about topics that may otherwise be a bit difficult to broach!
This particular book about strangers was great for my family: our family have now agreed a password for if they are ever approached by strangers. Even if someone says “mummy said to come with me”. They know first to ask for our password. Every time we now read this book is a little chance to ask them if they remember the password and repeat this process.
My eldest boy (aged 7) was able to read the book to us, although none of us had read a Captain No Beard book before, so it took us a couple of pages to work out that Alexander was just a boy pretending to be a pirate with his soft toys on his bed! We chatted about how the boys’ bunk bed could become a pirate ship! This particular book was also good for us – Alexander is charged with looking after his baby sister – how annoying! The pirate games were of course, sure to be spoiled. Exactly the thought process of my two boys at the prospect of having to look after their baby sister whenever I want to cook dinner! However, not in this story… without spoiling the ending of the story – first mate Cayla actually saves the day! Who’d have thought a smelly “diaper” could be so useful.
In terms of reading skills, my 5½ year (year 1) old struggled, but my almost 7 year old (year 2) was able to read it fairly fluently – I just needed to explain a few Americanisms. It was lovely to read it together as a family and have a chat afterwards.
Despite the book being fairly American in language used (mom, diaper etc…), this is a really fun and engaging book.
A really bright, colourful and engaging book of imaginary play. Well written, good quality and good value. I will definitely be buying other books from this series for my 6/7 year old boys.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £7.99
Available to buy from Amazon here.
