From the Publisher
"Away to the beach! Away to sand and salt water, to rolling dunes and pounding waves." A day at the beach supplies any child with a lifetime of memories. In this new picture book by award-winning author Elisha Cooper, the simple magic of building sand castles, collecting seashells, and running from the waves is brought to life through poetic text and lively illustrations. Together, readers will be able to visit the beach year-round as they share this delightful book.
Publishers Weekly
Like Cooper's other picture books (Baseball; Building), this surfside exploration combines a prosaic text with loose, cartoon-like figures that detail the activities a careful observer can notice about a particular place. "Away to the beach! Away to sand and salt water, to rolling dunes and pounding waves," begins the straightforward narrative. Three vertical panels depict an empty stretch of beach, which gradually fills with people. Like the labeled illustrations in Richard Scarry's word books, several pages feature a plethora of tiny watercolor-and-pencil sketchbook drawings with one-sentence captions: "A woman changes into her swimsuit under her towel.... Two sisters fill buckets with sand and start building a sculpture.... Seagulls watch everything, hovering until made to move." Another spread brims with intriguing images of cloud shapes. The small, faceless figures resemble sophisticated drawings of an artist's wooden model positioned in various poses, as the scenes progress from early morning until dusk. But the text reads like commentary on an artist's notebook, with neither a conflict nor a plot to keep young readers involved. It may be more suitable as a meditation for older beachgoers. Ages 3-5. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Children's Literature
At first glance, I did not like this oversized book. Too many small watercolor drawings, I thought, too many sentences. But upon giving it a second reading, I realized just how delightfully this book captures the atmosphere of the summer beach. There are swimmers, sunbathers, and kite-flyers. And tons of seagulls. There are castle builders, crab racers, and a man wading with his baby while keeping an eye out for jellyfish. Adventurous souls dive into the waves, while the timid remain on the shoreline, stuck like statues. There are couples playing chicken, dogs chasing driftwood, and boaters in every kind of sea-worthy vessel. There is even the drone of an airplane dragging a tail banner. With the turn of each page I found myself reliving memories of my private beach adventures. I clearly hear the clanging bell buoy and the mother trying to coat her screaming toddler with sun block. I see the beefy studs and the teen girls' giggles. I inhale the salty air and watch the man chase after his wife's rogue umbrella. I am on these pages, as I bet you will be. What a delightful gift for someone who longs to be at the beach but cannot physically get there.
School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 3-"As the day begins, the beach is empty, waiting to be filled." Cooper opens with a gorgeous stretch of sand in sun-flecked, amber-white watercolors, bounded by a sea so darkly blue that it seems still half-asleep. In the following pages, he tells the story, mainly in detailed splashes of paint, of the people and things that transform the quiet area into a lively spot. Readers will enjoy the affectionate portraits of swimmers, kite-flyers, sunbathers, seagulls, and barking dogs. A struggle with an inner tube or a beach umbrella, the people who go into the water but forget that they are still wearing their glasses, the clouds that look like spilled popcorn: here, as in life, it's the little things that snag readers' attention. Cooper's portrayal of a day at the shore is generous with such minutiae; his fondness for his subject is evident and infectious. As the beach once again empties at the end of the story, it's tempting to return to the first page, to a hundred possible activities at the shore-none of which is more earthshaking than a toppled sandcastle.-Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Another charmer from Cooper, who, with his signature impressionistic, diminutive figures and scenes, delivers a perfect day at the beach, observing people, paraphernalia and nature. Panoramic views appose Lilliputian visual narratives-a woman pulling a wagon packed with toys and kids, a boy pretending he's a sea turtle as the waves carry him out, kids building a sand castle and a dog barking at waves. People are depicted like embellished artists' wooden movable figures, jointed but amorphous in detail, and the simple daubs of paint generate motion like a handful of animation cels or a flip book. Masterful page composition creates a cinematic effect by panning from double spreads of the far-reaching vista to close-up pages of layered tiers of miniature dioramic scenes that are both graceful and fluid. As soothing and satisfying as the spray from dancing waves, sand between your toes and sun-warmed, waist-high water, this is as close as you can get to the beach without getting wet. As daylight ebbs, the beach empties but leaves behind "a day to remember when the beach is far away." (Picture book. 4-8)
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