Book Giveaway – Pirate’s Perfect Pet – Beth Ferry

Congratulations! The winner of PIRATE’S PERFECT PET is Karen Belli. Please send your address to receive your book.

Ahoy Mateys! Author of Stick and Stone, Beth Ferry has agreed to do a book giveaway for her new book, PIRATE’S PERFECT PET that launched today.

Beth is having a book launch at her local indie, Booktowne, in Manasquan, N.J. on August 7, 2016 from 12 – 2 p.m. Everyone is welcome. There will be parrots!!

All you have to do to get in the running for the book is to leave a comment. Reblog, tweet, or talk about it on facebook with a link and you will get additional chances to win. Just let me know the other things you did to share the good news, so I can put in the right amount of tickets in my basket for you. Please make sure you check back on August 16th to discover the winner. Make sure I’m able to find your contact information, in case your name is drawn.

Ahoy! Pirates, pets, and puns run amok as a swaggering, softhearted captain takes off on a mad search for the perfect animal sidekick.

Big, brave Captain Crave can check off most items on the handy Be Your Best Buccaneer checklist. He has a pirate ship, an eye patch, courage and daring, and more. Only one thing is missing: Captain Crave doesn’t have a pet. Arrr! Shuck me an oyster and set sail for land! The captain and his crew race and chase critters of every size and shape, from the beach to a farm to the zoo to a pet shop, causing a commotion wherever they go. But just when all seems lost, the search party stumbles on the most perfectly perfect pet for Captain Crave. Has he finally met his match? Aye-aye!

Journey

Pirate’s Perfect Pet was inspired by one of my favorite things – word play. In this case, the homophones “eye”, “aye” and “I”.

The word “aye” reminded me of a joke my husband used to tell. The ending goes something like this:

Sailor: “How did you get your eyepatch?”

Pirate: “A bird pooped in me eye.”

Sailor: “Bird poop did that?”

Pirate: “It was the day after I got me hook.”

My kids loved this joke and begged him to tell it again and again.

It was the spark that inspired this story.

Captain Crave’s checklist includes all the things he needs to be the perfect pirate captain.

Although we all know that pirates are associated with eye patches and peg legs, I did a little research just for fun. Here’s what I learned:

• Pirates didn’t really make anyone walk the plank. It was just easier to throw them overboard. The novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson popularized this myth.
• Same goes for parrots. Pirates did not keep parrots as pets. They mainly captured them for resale in Europe where the exotic pet trade was booming. Treasure Island once again popularized this myth with Long John Silver keeping a parrot on his shoulder. Stevenson got this idea from Robinson Crusoe.
• Peg legs were not very common because few men survived amputation. Doctors were rare among ships and usually the cook was called upon to do the amputations. Yikes.
• And lastly I learned why pirates are called pirates. They just arrrrrrrrr.

Matt Myers took this story and transformed it into something gorgeous. His illustrations are stunning and absolutely perfect. This book is one I will always treasure and I hope kids feel the same way!

Bio

Beth Ferry is the author of the picture books, Stick and Stone, Land Shark, A Small Blue Whale (Knopf, 2017) and Swashby and the Sea (HMH, 2018). She lives and writes by the beach in New Jersey where the salty air always inspires her.

Congratulations Beth! Looks like another award winning book to me and so much fun. For all ye landlubbers here’s ye link to buy Pirate’s Perfect Pet.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy