No Map Needed! Hidden Treasure by Ellie MacKay

I'M FEELING LUCKY. HOW ABOUT YOU?

DO YOU WANT TO LOOK FOR TREASURE, TOO?

Her shorts over her bathing suit, a young girl sets forth with Dad and her shaggy dog for the beach. As they make their way down toward the beach, a row of seagulls, like a group of soldiers at attention, review their passing from a rooftop.

EACH TIME I COME, THERE'S SOMETHING NEW.

Carefully the girl chooses her new treasures from the flotsam and jetsam along the waterline and from under the pier. She leaves some behind, knowing that they will be easy to re-find.

THE WATER'S COLD, BUT HERE I GO.

I SPOT A GLIMMER DOWN BELOW.

Leaving a moth's cocoon to hatch later, she lays out her ocean finds on the sands and tries to decide what to keep for a while--a softly gray gull feather, a sea-polished rock, a perfect pink shell with the sound of the sea. Which ones will it be?

Every find has its own tale to tell, and some belong in their place by the sea.

I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHERE THEY WILL BE.

Hidden treasures are revealed in Ellie Mackay's Hidden Treasure (Running Press Kids, 2021) in her elegantly misty and lovely paintings and simple but telling poetry of a time to be treasured in memory.

Not all things can go home from a beach walk, but beautiful memories can remain as bright and shiny as a freshly washed-up shell, and the real treasure here is the experience itself.

Says the New York Times reviewer, "The medium perfectly fits the message in this one-of-a-kind book about a girl’s search for wave-washed treasures."