1 stories
Pirate stories
Maps, treasure, parrots and a great deal of shouting
One pirate story sits on BedtimeStory.kids: The Coral Queen and the Space Pirate’s Curse, seven minutes long and written for ages 6–10. It swaps the galleon for a spaceship and keeps the curse.
Pirate stories are the loud end of bedtime, so they suit an earlier slot in the evening. Treasure maps, buried chests and captains who are not as fierce as they sound. The pirates in these tales are more likely to be lost, homesick or terrible at reading a map than genuinely dangerous, and the treasure is usually something other than gold. Good for children from four who like a bit of noise before the quiet.
Where to start with pirate stories
The Coral Queen and the Space Pirate’s Curse, in full
The Coral Queen and the Space Pirate’s Curse runs about seven minutes and is marked adventurous, which is the honest label. There is a curse, a queen, a pirate and a rescue, and the resolution comes from a group of friends deciding to act together rather than from anyone being the strongest.
Who it suits
The age range is 6–10, and that is not conservative padding. It expects a child who can hold several characters in their head and wait a few minutes for a problem to resolve. A four-year-old will enjoy the noise and lose the thread. For that age, read My Sea Beast and the Bubble Garden Adventure instead, eight minutes of underwater adventure written for ages 3–7.
How loudly to do a pirate at half past seven
Pirates invite shouting, and shouting at bedtime is a decision rather than an accident. The workable version is to make the pirate low and slow rather than loud: a growl at half volume is more menacing than a bellow and does not raise the whole room. Save the full performance for the second reading, on a Saturday, when nobody has to sleep afterwards.
Our guide to character voices covers the trick of keeping a voice you can repeat, which matters more than how good it is. If the story leaves your child too wound up, follow it with something short from gentle sleepy stories rather than ending on the curse.
Salt water, treasure and curses elsewhere
The pirate appetite is usually three separate appetites, and each is better served somewhere else on the site. For treasure and a cave that opens on a password, read Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, five minutes for ages 6–10. For robbers with a change of heart, The Three Robbers takes eight. For the sea itself, Why the Sea is Salt is a six-minute folk tale that explains the taste of the ocean, and The Dolphins, the Whales, and the Sprat is the calm five-minute one.
Treasure, incidentally, is almost never the point of a good pirate story. In all four of those, what the characters actually gain is a friend, a way home or an explanation, which is worth noticing aloud if your child is at the stage of asking what happened to the gold.
The bigger collections to browse are sea stories and adventure stories, and stories for big kids gathers everything else pitched at 6–10.
Collections that share these stories
Ranked by how many stories they have in common with this one.
Questions about pirate stories
How many pirate stories are on BedtimeStory.kids?
One: The Coral Queen and the Space Pirate’s Curse, a seven-minute story for ages 6–10. Sea stories and adventure stories hold the nearest alternatives.
Is the pirate story frightening?
There is a curse and a villain, but no violence and no bleak ending. Children of six and over generally take it as exciting rather than scary.
What can I read to a younger child who wants pirates?
My Sea Beast and the Bubble Garden Adventure is eight minutes for ages 3–7 and gives the sea adventure without the curse.