The Treasure of Captain Claw by Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox

The Treasure of Captain Claw by Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox
Buy The Treasure of Captain Claw by Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Summary: A fun, pirate story with a great ending and an exciting fold out illustration!
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 32	Date: January 2012
Publisher: Orchard
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1846167416
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This is the story of what happens when two dogs, Oscar and Lily, are on holiday together and come across an old treasure map. In their adventurous quest to find the treasure they are captured by pirates but they cleverly manage to outwit them in a way which leads to a laugh-out-loud conclusion to the story!

There are a lot of pirate-related picture books out there, some better than others, but you can rest assured that this is one that is worth reading. I really like the story in this one which is full of humour. The two dogs take lots of snacks with them for their adventure, and soon require a stop to have something to eat. They end up eating everything, except for some stinky cheese which has gone off in the sun, so rather than leaving any litter they decide to bury it in the hamper, and they draw a map showing them where it is so they can pick it up on their way home to dispose of it.

After being captured by the pirates, the dreaded Captain Claw demands they hand over his treasure map. Oscar hands over the map and they are released. Of course, those of you who are quick-witted will have figured out that Oscar has, rather cleverly, given Captain Claw the map to the stinky cheese! So whilst Oscar and Lily find the real treasure (gold-wrapped chocolate coins!), Captain Claw and his crew find themselves digging up some very pongy cheese!

I initially wasn't sure about the illustrations. The dogs seemed a bit too big somehow and not as cute as I'd expect them to be, and there's a picture at the end of the dogs leaving the treasure island by helicopter which I'm afraid left me thinking 'but the treasure was chocolate!') However, the pirate submarine is brilliantly done, as is the surprise fold out picture which shows you inside the pirate submarine, all the different cabins and the crew and what's going on in each one. You can spend a good ten minutes, or longer, just on that one page looking at everything including lots of little mice hidden around the submarine, and a stowaway cat! Captain Claw is reassuringly menacing (little children seem pre-conditioned to be scared of crocodiles!) and his expression on finding the cheese at the end is wonderful!

It's a fun story to read aloud, although that might just be because I always enjoy reading aloud pirate stories since you get to do some good pirate voices and shout things like Faster, you dogs, faster! It bears the re-read test too, and even just that fold out illustration of the pirate submarine is something good to come back to again and again.

For more fold-out fun you might like to try Sir Charlie Stinky Socks and the Really Frightful Night by Kristina Stephenson and Tales From Percy's Park: After the Storm by Nick Butterworth

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You can read more book reviews or buy The Treasure of Captain Claw by Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox at Amazon.com.

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