Swashbuckling fun

For some reason, my kids really love playing pirates. Since the first pirate set my sister got for them from France, they’ve amassed all sorts of other pirate toys. Tru has this gruff, piratey voice whenever he’s in character and he goes “Truett pirate, aaarrgghh!”

This pirate book, which my mom got from Borders in Melbourne during her last trip, brings storytelling to a whole new level.

The storybook was ok (it got a little rambly at times), but the awesome part was that it came with lots of tiny little cut-out characters so you could reenact your own pirate story if you didn’t like the original one. I have a thing for paper cut-out characters, I’m nerdy that way.

Usually, I make do with telling them stories without any props but it was really fun to have all the pirate figures hold tiny swords and jump around while I made up crazy pirate tales for a change.

Well, maybe I had a lot more fun with it than the kids because halfway through, they got really bored from not being able to touch the fragile paper cut-outs and went on a rampage. One of my little pirate boys lost a leg in the process and I had to make them sit in their baby chairs while I told the story from 3-feet away.

Because it’s made of paper, the cut-outs are rather flimsy and they topple easily so usually by the time I set up all the characters in position, they either get blown away by the wind or trampled to death by my 2 Babyzillas. But hey, that gives a new twist to the story when I’m all out of plot ideas.