Prince Noah and the School Pirates by Silke Schnee, Heike Sistig (Illustrations)

Noah is now old enough to go to school.  He's excited.  They go by boat and there's special one for each type of student.  Those who are regular boys and girls go on their assigned boats.  Noah is a prince so that's the boat he joins.  They also have boats for those who couldn't see well and those who had trouble walking.  So they set sail for school...

Plough Publishing House and Library Thing sent me this book to review (thank you).  It is being published today.

They have a pink boat for the girls but the boys get an orange boat?  No fair!  It's also not fair to segregate the students.  But, not to worry, there's trouble ahead and it will take care of all those things.

It seems the children have different ideas about what they want to learn.  There's a girl interested in math, the prince likes doing the alphabet athletically, the boys are running wild on their ship, Max gets bored so he cuts notches in his wooden leg, and the blind ones formed letters out of sand and water and left them on the dock.  They also practiced listening and learning what it meant.

When bad weather comes up, they get blown off course and are overtaken by pirates.  It takes all of the school students working together to figure out how to get out of the prison tower and escape.  See, I knew they should have left the children together and not separated them.  

This story celebrates the differences between us and show you how if you work together as a team, it works better.  That's an important lesson.  Everybody has a skill.  Let them make the most of it.