Category: book review

In Captain LaPlank: The Perfect Pirate tells the story of LaPlank as he sets out on adventure with his crew.

About Captain LaPlank: The Perfect Pirate

This rhyming pirate adventure tells a funny story of LaPlank perfectly captaining his ship as his new crew watches, until one by one they begin making minor mistakes and are shown the plank! It’s a classic and timely tale of something our culture today struggles to overcome, the desire to be perfect and in control. At a time when parents and children are bombarded by images in the media of perfect families and extreme athletic, educational, and financial success, we have much to learn from LaPlank’s epiphany, “It has nothing to do with ship captains and crews—perfection’s not something that pirates can choose. They’d bungled their business but those are the breaks—mistakes are just something that everyone makes!”

Our Thoughts

Mistakes are a normal part of life – stuff happens all the time but it is how we react to these mistakes can make or break us as individuals and our relationships with others.

In this book, LaPlank expects his crew to be beyond perfect – mistakes are never ever allowed to happen and if they do, you walk the plank! No one can do their duties or perform well under these extreme expectations and LaPlank’s crew is no exception. One by  one they each make mistakes and it is their turn to walk the plank. It isn’t until there is no one left and the Captain has to perform all the duties, that he realizes how unfair he has been. Especially when he finds his own mistake! He learns the error of his way and returns to find his crew and make amends.

This was an excellent, funny book for children. They will laugh at the antics of the Captain but at the same time they learn an excellent lesson on understanding, acceptance and forgiveness. Out of every mistake, we learn something so we should never be afraid to try and make a mistake. Too often children don’t feel this, they feel overwhelmed to be perfect. It is important that they understand that perfection is impossible standard to have, instead we should embrace mistakes and share a good laugh over them. This would make a great starting point for parents to have a conversation with their child about mistakes they made, how they fixed them and moved forward.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon. Learn more about this book here.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

An emerging children’s author inspired by Dr. Seuss, Flibber T. Gibbet wrote the whimsical cautionary tale of Captain LaPlank: The Perfect Pirate to inspire perfectionist parents to focus on embracing children doing the best they can, and perhaps they can learn a little something along the way too.

Book Trailer

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

GayBCs is a progressive adult alphabet book that celebrates and illuminates LGBTQ terminology.

About GayBCS: A Queer Alphabet

What would happen if someone picked up a classic ABC book, crossed out the words, and replaced them with LGBTQ terms?

The result would be GAYBCs —a playful, subversive alphabet book that aims to spread awareness and demystify queer terminology for everyone. Instead of apple, ball, and chick, this book’s ABCs are ally, bisexual, and cisgender. A ladybug gains a matching girlfriend to become lesbian, kiss becomes kink, and tie gets a gender-bending twist to become transgender. Using straightforward, accessible language, GAYBCs also defines less commonly known terms, such as “femme,” “Mx.,” and “ze,” and puts LGBTQ-friendly spins on words like “wedding” and “equality.” With clear definitions and clever illustrations, this book is accessible to everyone from teenagers to grandparents and those in the LGBTQ community as well as family, friends, and allies of all backgrounds. A fun and informative adult picture book, GAYBCs is a queer ABCs for our modern world.

My Thoughts

This fantastic spin on your typical ABC book is an important starting point for adults, teens and children. For myself, I didn’t grow up with these terms and I feel like finally people are understanding that there is nothing different about LGBTQ community and the only thing wrong is the way they were and may still be treated by others.

It is an easy book to read with simple but impactful illustrations. Each letter takes up two of the pages (if you were to spread your fingers out, that would be roughly the size of one page to put this in perspective) and is given a new term in order to spread awareness. I learned a new term (Mx) and some of my favourite parts of the book were the letters W and Y as we look to the future and support our youth and equal rights for all because at the end of the day to each their own (if you read the book you will find that one!).

I know it is called an adult picture book but this is a book that you can read with a young child right up to a teenager. The terms and explanation are easy to understand and the illustrations are perfect and quite cleverly done (I loved how they used the original illustration and altered it for the new term – my favourite were the ladybugs).

This is an extremely important book to have in all houses as this is a conversation we should be having with our children. It is important that children understand that we are all born different and that there is no one catch description that fits all. The same applies to teens and adults! At the end of the day, we are all human and just trying to be happy – so be kind, respectful, understand and support!

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Rae Congdonis is an award-winning graphic designer and a graduate of Seton Hall University, where she studied graphic and interactive design with a minor in fine arts.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.