Beach Babes: Duck and Goose Go to the Beach by Tad Hills

Duck and Goose are enjoying the morning sun in their meadow.

"DON'T YOU JUST LOVE IT HERE?" GOOSE HONKED.

"LET'S NEVER LEAVE!"

"YOU JUST GAVE ME THE GREATEST IDEA, GOOSE!" SAID DUCK. "LET'S TAKE A TRIP!"

Homebody Goose thinks there's no place like their meadow. Why would anyone leave such a perfect place?

Duck, however, has a case of webbed wander-foot. He suggests they take a hike.

Goose is appalled.

"I'LL WALK, BUT I WILL NOT HIKE!" GOOSE GRUMBLED.

But Duck is his friend, so Goose trudges along, still pointing out the accouterments that make the meadow perfect--log, pond, their special ball. Duck zooms ahead, paddling down an unexplored brook, and then waddling up a long hill. Suddenly he stops and stares at a sight he's never seen before.

"COULD IT BE THE BEACH? ... I LOVE THE BEACH!"

Duck dashes down the dunes, across the sand, and wades right into the sea. Goose follows more slowly. There so much sand, so much sound all around. Warily Goose gets his feet wet, too. Duck is thrilled.

"THESE WAVES ARE VERY...."

Suddenly a big breaker bowls the two over.

Duck is tipped tail over bill and comes up sputtering and draped with seaweed.  It seems he is not so sure about the beach now. Goose, on the other hand, has an unexpected reaction.

"FUN!"

Author Tad Hills takes his endearing little water fowl duo to meet the beach, in his latest in series, Duck & Goose Go to the Beach (Schwartz and Wade, 2014). As usual, Goose drags his webbed feet a bit but comes around to lead the way as the two explore the fun of the beach, having an adorable encounter with a crab and listening to the sound of the sea in a washed-up seashell. The two little waddlers in their sun hats share an adventure that can be a bit intimidating at first for youngsters, taking that first dunking in the waves vicariously for their readers. "There is so much expression in just the eyes of these characters that children can't help but smile, " says School Library Journal.

Beach Babes: Olivia Learns to Surf by Kate Boutelier and Eryk Casamiro

TODAY WE ARE GOING ON A SPECIAL TRIP TO THE BEACH WITH GRANDMOTHER.

What makes this trip extra special for Olivia and her little brother Ian is that Grandmother is taking them to the beach where she used to surf with her friends when she was their age.

It's still the best surfing beach in the world, Gran points out, and she is a good teacher, giving the two youngsters a "dry run" on the sand on their surfboards before she takes them into the waves. It's a real link between the generations as Grandmother shares something she loved as a child in the very place where Olivia and Ian first get their feet wet in the sport.

Young fans of Ian Falconer's Olivia and her Nickelodeon program will love the sturdy and bright diecut-shaped OLIVIA Learns to Surf (Olivia TV Tie-In) (Simon Spotlight, 2011), a good one to pair with the evergreen Just Grandma and Me (Little Critter) (Pictureback(R)) before a visit to the beach or an outing with Grandmother.

A Day at the Beach: Wave by Susie Lee

The essence of what a picture book should be--Suzy Lee's brilliant, beautiful Wave, a story without words which speaks volumes, recreates the joy of a first encounter with the ocean's waves.

Executed in simple, almost primitive, charcoal pencil lines in dusky gray and black against a bright white background, the pages are lit up with the brilliant but soft blue of the ocean, its motion rendered evocatively with simple variations of color and swirls of foam. Into this scene comes a small girl, sturdy legs and windblown hair rendered in a few deft lines, watched over benevolently by her mother from the shade of her umbrella and by a line of five seagulls facing windward.

Approaching the edge, the girl retreats hastily from the first breaking wave, but she and the gulls quickly regroup as she ventures into the wet sand and puts a tentative toe into the wavelet as it rolls backward. Reassured, she splashes and twirls in the shallows.

But suddenly a giant wave begins to roll in. Temporarily frozen in the face of the curling, looming wave, girl and birds turn and flee up the shore's slope. At what she thinks a safe distance, the girl turns and saucily sticks out her tongue at the rogue wave. "You can't get me," she seems to be saying.

Then the wave breaks all over her, in a mass of roiling, splashing, swirling blue water, and just as hastily recoils, leaving the girl drenched and sitting, bottom sinking into the soft, wet sand, with her hair dripping and her legs stretched out before her.

But all round she sees what the wave has left for her--dozens of shells and even a living starfish--and she soon is gathering the bounty and calling to her mom to see what the sea has brought her. As her mother, umbrella folded and beachbag packed, comes down to the marge to gather her daughter and her treasures, the girl returns the starfish to the shallows, and then, turning to wave goodbye to the ocean and soaring gulls, heads home, salty, sandy, and happy.

It's everything a first day at the beach should be. Wave, is a little gem of a book which will appeal to all ages for its spare, sheer beauty and its wordless portrayal of childhood joy.