Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies, Brian Lies (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

Quick, call out! Tell all you can reach: the night is just perfect for bats at the beach!

So pack your buckets, banjos, and blankets—don’t forget the moon-tan lotion—and wing with this bunch of fuzzy bats to where foamy sea and soft sand meet.

Brian Lies’s enchanting art and cheery beachside verse will inspire bedtime imaginations again and again. Come visit a bedazzling world of moonlight, firelight, and . . . bats!

Children's Literature

Here is a real reversal on a sunny day at the beach. The bats head out for a night of fun. They put on moonglow lotion, enjoy swims, picnics, burying each other in the sand, and beach volleyball. The details are a treat, such as the picnic food, which includes skeeter crisps and toasted bug marshmallows. The bats sing around the campfire and as the sky begins to lighten, they prepare to fly away. The moon is gone, but it did provide a perfect night for the bats at the beach. The illustrations, which are all nighttime scenes, still manage to show great detail—the light of the moon plays off the water and is reflected off the sand and a big yellow shovel. The campfire and interior of the snack bar provide a different type of light to help break the monotony of the night scenes. Young readers should find this reversal interesting, and it may help reduce the irrational fear that people seem to have about bats. A note on the jacket indicates that part of the proceeds will be donated to Bat Conservation International.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3-This is the quintessential book about going to the beach complete with overflowing picnic baskets, kite flying, singing around the campfire, and scratchy sand in places "where no sand should be." Kids will certainly identify with the exuberant and familiar fun, but what will get them howling is the fact that the characters are bats that are visiting the beach in the moonlight. The rhyming text is grounded in reality with many inventive twists to keep the imagination rolling. There is moon-tan lotion, salted 'skeeters, and bat kites. Where the book truly soars is in the dark yet luminescent art where bat wings glow in the light of the full moon and the sky is a steely blue. The faces on the bats are furry and friendly. These creatures use cocktail umbrellas for beach umbrellas; they hold wing-boat races in red-and-white checked food containers; and when it's time for a late-night snack, they enter the ice-cream shack where a lit light bulb attracts a multitude of succulent bugs. Readers may not be tempted to try marshmallows with bug legs and gossamer wings but that won't keep them from reveling in this grand adventure.-Martha Topol, Traverse Area District Library, Traverse City, MI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Gathering up "our buckets, trowels, / banjoes, blankets, books, and towels," a family of bats flits out to the beach for a moonlit picnic of "yummy treats"-"Beetles, ants, and milkweed bugs, / crickets, moths, and pickled slugs. / Damselflies, or salted 'skeeters- / no room here for picky eaters!" Aside from the deliciously macabre menu, it's not too different from a human outing; in Lies's lambent, exactly detailed paintings, bats with an appealingly mouse-like look cavort happily through the waves, play volleyball and other games or snuggle into comfy laps around a glowing campfire as the grownups chat amiably. As a purpling sky to the east signals that it's time to clean up, they "flutter homeward, drained and weary," as "small bats doze off, tired and teary." Perfect for sharing with younglings of the wingless sort, when it's time for them to do the same. (Picture book. 5-7)

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