I bought this book for my son to learn more about pirates in the few weeks leading up to his 4th birthday when we will use a pirate theme. It's more of a factual telling about the life of pirates vs. a story and the violence one reviewer refers to is probably based on a picture of pirates coming over the bulwarks of a boat with cutlasses waving at fleeing victims. The book doesn't sugar coat the fact that pirates were thieves and pretty "naughty." It has really engaged my son in learning lots of pirate lore like what pets they had (parrots, monkeys and cats), what kind of treasure they were interested in, and their code of honor (a great intro for discussing our house rules), among other things. The book prompts lots of questions on his part. He has clearly enjoyed it and asks for it whenever pirates is the bedtime topic of choice. If you want something more playful, try Kathy Tucker's "Do Pirates Take Baths?" or David McPhail's "Edward and the Pirates." They won't be as educational, but they contrast (and complement) the realism of this book with a traditional fantasy-oriented approach.

This is a good kids' book, with beautiful illustrations. It gives a good overview of life among eighteenth-century pirates, at a child's level, and will increase a kid's enjoyment of "Treasure Island" or Howard Pyle's wonderful pirate stories, later. This book's pirates are fascinating, somewhat romanticized, but NOT role-models (they're thieving scalawags! What did you expect?); the mentions of danger and violence were VERY restrained, however, and the sailors' folk songs on the flip side of the audiotape accompanying the book are well done, pleasantly sung and properly censored ("Fiddler's Green" has removed all references to "Hell", etc.). My boy has been singing about "Good Fish Chowdah" for days, and will enjoy this book and tape for a long time to come.

This book has nothing to do with violence as stated by the other review. I am only writing this to tell you that there IS no violence. This book is informative, intersting and factual. It had many new vocabulary for my kids to learn. My 3yr old son and 5 year old daughter beg to hear the tape several times a day. Tape has lively songs on one side and the text on the other - read by male and female individuals.