Bubble Bath Pirates

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Krosoczka, Jarrett J. 2003. Bubble Bath Pirates. New York: Viking.

PLOT SUMMARY:

The mother of two toddlers announces it is bath time and the fun begins. The children pretend they are pirates prepare for their bath. Bath time is accompanied by toys, games, and lots of laughter. When the bath is over the pirated receive their bounty of ice cream.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

Bubble Bath Pirates is a fun book for preschool aged children. It can be used as a tool to make bath time more enjoyable for children who may not like baths or who may be afraid of water. The story shows the ritual of bath time for other young children which may inspire families to come up with their own bath time games as well. The colorful illustrations follow along with the story very closely which will aid young readers or listeners in following along with the action of the story. The pictures use lots of color with very little background distractions. This story is written to be read aloud and provides opportunities for the reader to use funny voices and sounds to bring the story alive for little listeners.

AWARDS AND REVIEWS:

2004 Missouri Building Block Award
Starred Review by the Center for Children’s Books
A BookSense 76 Selection
An IRA/CBC Children’s Choice

From Publishers Weekly:
"Yo ho, yo ho, it's off to the bath we go!" shout the titular budding buccaneer brothers. Their mother, no fool, plays right along: "Walk the plank!" she orders her now-naked (except for pirate headgear) charges, pointing to the frothy tub. Working in the thick, color-saturated acrylics of his previous book Baghead, Krosoczka stretches the watery playground across the gutter, and makes the bubbly tub's surface as wavy and wild as the high seas. The bathers themselves embody the snips-and-snails-and-puppy-dog-tails definition of boy, their oversize heads sporting ear-to-ear grins. They jubilantly spout pirate lingo, while their sidekick, a menacing teeth-baring, eye patch-sporting rubber ducky, looks on. A hair wash by the "mommy pirate" doesn't strike the boys as worthy of two hardened sea rovers ("Blimey!" they grimace), but they carry out the rest of their bathing duties with swashbuckling aplomb, then scamper into the kitchen to claim their treasure: ice cream, eaten straight from the container. Ages 2-5.

From School Library Journal:
PreSchool-Grade 2-A jolly "pirate mommy" turns bath time into an excursion at sea as mounds of bubbles create a foaming main for her two sons caught up in pirate fantasies. Even their snarly rubber ducky sports a black eye patch, and the only time the boys look downcast is when they remove their headgear for a hair wash. They don't stay clean long, though, because their reward is ice cream scooped straight from cartons. The unvarying call and response of the text becomes tedious, and the vividly colored illustrations include some jarring elements-the people are almost caricatures (their faces are dominated by large mouths with lots of teeth). Still, fans of Krosoczka's Good Night, Monkey Boy (Knopf, 2001) will enjoy this title as a kind of bedtime companion piece, and it may be considered where there is a need for books with this theme. A more sustained, imaginative bath excursion can be found in Jerry Pallotta's Dory Story (Charlesbridge, 2000), and Simon Puttock's Squeaky Clean (Little, Brown, 2002) offers an exuberant and appealing family of pigs enjoying their bath-time bubbles.
Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato