These days, one of my kids' favorite books is How I Became A Pirate, by Melinda Long. In its pages, the mild-mannered soccer player slips away to sail the high seas in the company of real, live pirates (of the Captain Hook variety, not the kind from Somalia) but becomes disillusioned when he realizes pirates don’t read bedtime stories or tuck you in at night.

So it was no shock that “Emphatical Piratical,” released last month by Portland-based buccaneer rock band, Captain Bogg & Salty, went over, well, swimmingly.

The 12-song CD takes listeners on a rollicking scallywag journey, through tempestuous waves and fierce crocodiles, sea monsters and cannonballs.

You can’t help but sing along to the toe-tapping opening track, cleverly set to Offenbach’s “Galop Infernal” from the 1800’s. At the beginning of the song, a pirate reads a letter that’s washed up in a bottle, wondering whether pirates are real – or not. “Emphatical Piratical,” the title track, sets that question to rest definitively.

Sing along:
Emphatical piratical, impractical not factual
Fictional and mythical, conditional historical
Nautical fantastical, aesthetical, theatrical
Exceptional and comical, even paralogical

The music itself is fantastical and a treat for parental ears. Captain Bogg & Salty spin calypso and sophisticated hip-hop, along with traditional sea shanties.

They bill themselves as pirate rock for all ages, and that’s not a stretch. This is one of those CD’s that don’t make you cringe. I’ve even found myself listening to it when I’m alone in the minivan.

Ahoy there, me laddies – if that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is.