About the Preschool Book
Jeremy Jacob was enjoying a peaceful day at the beach, minding his own business and building a sand castle, when he saw a pirate ship sailing towards the beach. His parents were busy with his baby sister and setting up the beach umbrella so Jeremy greeted the pirates all by himself. The pirates needed someone who could dig holes for them to bury their treasure in and Jeremy just happened to be a great digger so he offers to go along and help them.
Jeremy learns all about what life as a pirate is like. He thinks it is great having no rules and playing all day until he realizes that pirates do not read bedtime stories or tuck little boys into bed. Jeremy helps the pirates find the perfect place to bury their treasure and Jeremy was ready to go back home and be a little boy again.
From the Reviewer
"How I Became a Pirate" was written by Melinda Long and illustrated by favorite children's author, David Shannon. In typical Shannon fashion, the illustrations are full of deeply colorful characters and small additions that will make preschoolers laugh. This imaginative story about a day at the beach will get preschoolers thinking about the many possibilities in the world around them. Jeremy Jacob is a lovable character that preschoolers will be able to relate to.
Pirates are so appealing to preschoolers and this comic tale is mellow enough not to frighten preschoolers with gruesome details that other pirate books include. The pirates themselves are fun loving and gentle and would attract any adventure loving preschooler.
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Hi! I'm Rachel Lister, the Preschool Education writer at PreschoolRock.com. I live in Utah with my husband and two beautiful boys. When my oldest son was born, I quit my teaching job and opened a home daycare and preschool. I love to help preschoolers learn about the world around them. They make life interesting and I can't imagine doing anything different. If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, feel free to contact me.
Helpful Tips for Parents
- Read aloud daily for at least 15 minutes. This single habit is the strongest predictor of kindergarten reading readiness and long-term academic success.
- Choose toys that grow with the child: open-ended materials (blocks, clay, art supplies) remain valuable for years; single-use toys with one correct answer produce brief engagement.
- Children's questions are assessment data. The questions a child asks reveal their current conceptual level and what they're ready to learn next.
- Avoid academic pressure before age 5. Preschool children's brains are not developmentally ready for formal academic instruction, and premature pressure backfires.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most important educational skill to develop before kindergarten?
Executive function — the cluster of skills that includes working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control — is the strongest predictor of kindergarten and long-term academic success. Executive function is built through play (especially complex pretend play), physical activity, music, and responsive adult interaction. It cannot be taught through drills or worksheets. A child with strong executive function can learn academic content readily when developmentally ready; a child with weak executive function struggles regardless of academic knowledge.
Should my preschooler be reading before kindergarten?
Reading before kindergarten is possible for some children and developmentally not expected of most. The literacy skills that predict reading success — phonological awareness (hearing sounds in words), letter knowledge, print awareness, and vocabulary — are the appropriate focus before age 5. These skills are built through: reading aloud daily, nursery rhymes and songs, alphabet activities, and rich conversation. A preschooler who loves books, knows their letters, and has a large vocabulary is fully reading-ready, whether or not they can decode words independently.
Related reading: See also our alphabet activities and our read-aloud guide for more ideas on this topic.
🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 📚 Pre-Reading Skills — Activities that involve letters, sounds, rhymes, and print directly build the phonological awareness and letter knowledge that are the two strongest predictors of successful reading development.
- 📖 Story Structure Understanding — Understanding that stories have a beginning, problem, solution, and ending develops narrative comprehension — the mental schema children use to make sense of increasingly complex texts throughout their school years.
- 🔢 Early Numeracy — Hands-on counting, sorting, measuring, and pattern work develops the number sense and mathematical reasoning that formal arithmetic will later build on — and preschool numeracy is one of the strongest predictors of later math achievement.
- 👂 Listening & Attention — Activities that require children to listen carefully and follow directions build the voluntary auditory attention that classroom learning, reading comprehension, and conversation all require.
From the Preschool Book
"Nobody tells pirates to go to bed, to take a bath, or to brush their teeth. (Maybe that's why their teeth are green.) Pirates sleep with one eye open – just in case. And they don't change into pajamas – unless they want to. Pirates don't do anything they don't want to – except for maybe swabbing the decks. I wanted to be a pirate forever."
