Way Out West with Pirate Pete and Pirate Joe (review)

Pirate Joe is a little miffed that nobody has remembered his birthday, but right now there's a bigger problem looming. Pete and Joe's cousins Cowboy Clete and Cowboy Moe have ditched school in the company of Tumbleweed Ted ("Yikes! He is bad!"), and the cousins' parents, Rodeo Queen and Cowpoke Carl, are worried that their boys will be led astray. Pirates Pete and Joe, their pirate pets, and Rodeo Queen's hopping bull (who thinks he's a rabbit) pile into the Jolly Roger panel van and head west to the Rude Dudes' Dude Ranch on top of Old Smokey. When "Ding dong! Pirates calling!" gets no response, they cautiously creep through the door and—"Surprise!"— it's a birthday party for Pirate Joe, as most readers will have already predicted. The piracy send-ups that made On the Go with Pirate Pete and Pirate Joe such a rollicking success (BCCB 9/02) have lost some of their fizzle, and the cowboy cousins could be more comedically developed; nonetheless, there's some lively tongue-twisting involved in the Rude Dudes' Dude Ranch, pirate pets and bull doing a bunny hop, and sage advice: "Don't squat with your spurs on!" That, and Smith's raucous line-and-watercolor pictures of the mismatched buccaneer buddies, should be enough to keep this early chapter-book series vital for another round.