The Pirate-Cruncher by Jonny Duddle......what?

[Pempe]

At the risk of sounding like a complete and utter fool, what happens at the end of The Pirate-Cruncher by Jonny Duddle? My DSs love these stories and will have them read to them incessantly, but I just can't work out what the actual end to the story is? So, the pirates get eaten, and the fiddler is ok because he has the macaw? Is he actually the monster, and he eats them?

I think the fiddler is a puppet belonging to the pirate cruncher and the parrot provides the voice.

The pirates next door is better. Much less odd!

As far as I can recall, the fiddler is like a kind of puppet used by the monster to lure the pirates. I seem to remember you can actually see the puppet strings if you look closely. Ds loves it. I don't - the weak/intermittent rhyming annoys me .

Cross posts!

The pirate cruncher is a sea monster who uses a string puppet ( the fiddler; look carefully and you will see strings on each page) to lure the pirates to the island: his head. I love this book!! Have you read the Pirates next door? That's great too!

I saw the strings and thought they COULD be puppet strings, but kind of discounted that as there's no other clue to it.....but the parrot being the voice? How are we supposed to know that???

And yes I've got Pirates Next Door too, but they don't like that so much - I think they feel put off and uncomfortable by the big section of negative comments from the neighbours (even though I know it all comes right in the end, once the mercurial bastards get their treasure)