The Peanut Butter Pirate Has A Surprising Day started off as a round table discussion between my children and I. We were writing a story together and needed characters. And something delicious, of course, as food is high up on the list of priorities in our household.

We'd been reading Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie and my son was equal parts fearful of and fascinated by 'naughty pirates'. Thus a pirate came to mind as a character immediately. Why peanut butter? Two reasons: (1) it is the favourite table spread in this house and the obvious food choice for any decent pirate, and (2) alliteration is always good (Peanut Butter Pirate).

My daughter was keen for a 'naughty witch' (yes, you see the theme here) to be in the story, having recently been gifted a copy of Badjelly the Witch by Spike Milligan. She also wanted to be represented in the story by a fictional character ... though not as the naughty witch ... read the book to find out who she wanted to be!

I took our initial wacky ideas in several different directions including a poem/shanty, a kids' mystery story, and an adventure on the seas ...... but I found myself in murky waters and I was losing my kids in certain retellings of the story-in-process.

So I returned to what I had had in mind for the story—a read-aloud tale that could be enjoyed by our kids (aged 5 and under) now. With our son turning 4 soon, and the original 'PB pirate' in this house I also started dreaming about having the story illustrated and printed and presented to him for his birthday present.

Without knowing what he was signing up for (even more late nights than we already have as parents to a toddler), my hubby Jarred offered to illustrate the story. Though it was more crunchy than smooth in parts of the journey of working together on this book I am very grateful that he was on board this ship as Illustrator of the story. We both worked on this in snatches of free time, usually when the kids were watching too much TV in the afternoon or when they were in bed and we wanted to be in bed ourselves!

The story was well-received by our kids and is slowly making its way out into the wider world as well. We hope you will join us on our delicious read-aloud journey x