"Like a series of post-modern woodcuts, the fluid lines of Priest"s (The Town That Got Out of Town) sleek airbrushed enamel-on-clayboard illustrations unfold in a sequence of color-saturated vignettes that give form and substance to this diverting tale of a retired buccaneer. An ex-pirate, now residing in a New York City apartment and nostalgic for his days as a swashbuckler, builds a model of his old ship, The Laughing Dog, and launches it on the Central Park Sailboat Pond. Soon a retired Queen shows up with her S.S. Uppity Duchess, "which commenced with utter, reckless, and heedless abandon to race pell-mell around the pond." A battle for naval supremacy ensues, complete with miniature cannons and tiny cannonballs whose thunder "reached a crescendo that could be heard all the way to Harlem." A peace treaty is finally brokered as naptime for the elderly rivals approaches, and the two "Old Retirates" agree to share the seas. It"s a droll concept that Priest handily executes. He...