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A family spends a day at the beach
observing various creatures’ prints in the sand.
Children and families of various
skin tones and hair textures play on the beach as the main characters, a mother
and father, a boy and a girl, all with brown skin, arrive, the children running
toward the water. In spare, mostly rhyming verses, the text introduces “sandy
feet” and “digging feet” and “wading feet” alongside small creatures as the
children encounter them on the beach. A wet dog, a sandpiper, a scuttling crab,
a sea gull. Each full-bleed illustration features motion—spraying water and
creatures in action, with hints on each spread of the creature to be featured
on the next. As the sun goes down, the family packs up and walks away from the
water, tired out. The final spread shows a collection of prints featured
throughout the book. Endnotes encourage readers to be “ecology detectives” and
observe prints in nature, then provide information about the animals in the
book. The calming beach colors create nostalgia for beach lovers, and the
changing perspective of each spread adds interest for the duration of the book.
More substantive than some
beach-themed books, this one is engaging enough and notable due to the
spotlight on brown children. (Picture
book. 3-7)
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