Warned not to touch Captain McKee’s canoe, no matter what, two children and a toy kangaroo hijack it and head out to sea in the fading light. They have an extraordinary adventure with five dozen piratical seafaring knaves, return home more by good luck than good management, and get off without a scolding. The further admonition not ever to touch the captain’s “twin-engined sleigh” they also take as a challenge rather than a prohibition. At least, thinks the scandalized adult, the rascals were wearing life jackets in the canoe. Will they remember to pack parachutes in the Twin Otter?

Kids will probably recognize this as the fantasy it is, a variant on the classic theme of defying adult authority and learning and growing through the consequences. Lawson’s sing-song rhymes and Zimmermann’s superb watercolours, a dreamlike mix of real and surreal, signal to the attentive child that this is, after all, a story.

Young listeners will squirm with delicious terror at the two kids entering forbidden zones; good readers will enjoy twisting tongues around pirate threats to “reel ’em and keel ’em” and “splinter their giddles and twickle their toes.” Soon enough all comes clear: when the pirates shout “Flame grill the dogs!” they mean a weenie roast, and they’re tickled pink at an excuse to break out the marshmallows. Captain McKee is equally delighted to find the miscreants have brought back treasure, even if the gold is chocolate centred.

Evidently Lawson and Zimmermann, seasoned producers of books for children, and neither of them strangers to a paddle, feel confident that their book won’t start a rash of pre-pubescent boat thefts. But call me old-fashioned, call me an over-protective ’90s parent: Peter Rabbit got his comeuppance at the hands of Mr. McGregor, the elephant’s child ended up with a long nose, and when a couple of wet-behind-the-ears little landlubbers make off in a canoe without permission, somebody should suffer.