Little Tom spends his days watching for pirates from atop a hill next to the village where he lives. When he spots a boat he shouts ‘THE PIRATES ARE COMING!’ and all the villagers quickly hide. However it soon becomes apparent that it’s just a little fishing boat, and not a pirate ship at all.
Undeterred, Tom climbs back up the hill and continues to watch the horizon. Each time he spots a boat he yells down to the village and everyone hides – but it’s always a false alarm.
But then one day he spots a very large ship with a pirate flag! He yells ‘THE PIRATES ARE COMING!’ but everyone ignores him. Tom is never right about the boats so they don’t think there’s any point hiding. How wrong they are! The ship docks and a motley crew of pirates disembark. The villagers soon realise their mistake and scramble to their hiding places…
And here the story takes a very unexpected twist which I won’t spoil for you but I guarantee your little one will enjoy it!
This is a really funny story which we have read hundreds of times since we bought it a few months ago. Ivy loves the surprise ending and she was very excited when she spotted that some of the pirates are female.
The illustrations are fabulous and we particularly like exploring all of the inventive hiding places which the villagers use. Our favourites are the lady in a crate in a crate of cabbages and the man hastily painting himself yellow so he can camouflage against a wall!
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Disclosure: The publisher provided us with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.