The text, content and music are lively and appealing.

Selections such as Seahorse Lullaby are clever musical renditions containing interesting and relatively unknown facts about the sea—its inhabitants and its unique vocabulary. Jokes and riddles are musically interspersed for fun and laughs. [One pirate said to another, “I see you got your ears pierced. How much was it?” “A buccaneer.”]

The first of the two stories, Pirate’s Promise, begins with the discovery of two babies in an abandoned boat. The ship’s crew immediately adopted them and named them Weedy (the boy—from “seaweed”) and Shelly (the girl—from “seashells”), and they all grew to be a loving family as the years passed. However, the children turned out to be Selkies (sea creatures who are humans on land, and seals in the water when they wear their seal skins), leaving the crew in a dilemma regarding their family unity. Facts about sea life are cleverly woven into this story’s plot.

A hard-working fisherwoman in the story Saltarello unknowingly taught a lesson to a mean neighboring fisherman who, because of his uncontrollable greed, was starving his family. Listeners will recognize people in their own lives who have comparable behaviors to these strong story characters.