Customer Reviews
4 1/2 Beachy Keen! 
2008-07-27
One of the most beautifully illustrated books I've seen in the past few years, I still have to give "Beach" a small demerit for the frustratingly small mini-pictures of beach activites. Otherwise this is just a gorgeous, well written paeon to everything beachy, with impressionistic panoramas and straightforward sentences that get to the heart of the beach scene.
The delicately shaded, bright watercolors capture place, people, and movement like few other picture books. The book unfolds just as a day at the beach might, as people gather and populate the beach, so do clouds and birds, waves and umbrellas. The books engulfs you with these pictures, inviting you to play with the cloud images and the various activities both in and out of the water. You can smell it. You can taste it. Even though the content and style of the pictures has a slightly 1960's feeling to it, the images are transcendant, and their quality gives this "classic" status.
I'll return to that one misgiving. Every few pages, Cooper crowds some very small pictures onto one page. These unframed pictures have plenty of white space around them--the problem is they're just too small. Toddlers and older small fry may have trouble distinguishing some of the activities (especially if they're unfamiliar with water activities), and just forget about these pages in group settings. I'd suggest holding the panoramas high for everyone to see, with an invitation to view the "little pictures" later. (Alternately, you could photocopy those pages and hand then out to prevent sharing difficulties!)
Some of my fondest memories (and one frightening one) are of the beaches where I grew up, and I've never lived more than 20 miles away from the coast. "Beach" is an antidote to cloudy days, a vision for those who've never been, and a visual delight for adults and their young-uns. Cooper portrays the constant magic in the everchanging beach scene, and balances the grandly majestic with the smaller-scale diversity of the beachgoers. Recommended for all ages: Non-readers, pre-readers, and veteran readers. All will rejoice in Cooper's illuminated/illuminating watercolors.
children's beach sandwiches 2007-06-07
The children's sandwiches in "Beach Lover's Guide to the Perfect Sandwich" would be great to make with the kids while reading the book.
A Perfect Way to Remember a Trip to the Beach! 2007-01-21
I got this book out the library for my son who is soon to turn 7. Each summer when spend a week at the beach and this book captured perfectly so many of the things we have experienced. The only thing missing was a passing ferry boat (we go to an island off the New England coast), but both my son and I could easily imagine seeing one in the distant of the lovely sketches.
I've asked his grandmother to get this book for him for his birthday. It is a treasure!
All kinds of fun beach activities are the attraction. 2006-12-10
Elisha Cooper's BEACH captures a day at the beach using a picturebook pairing of lovely poetic text and realistic drawings. From sandcastles and a crab race to covering up, all kinds of fun beach activities are the attraction.
You can actually feel the sun 2006-09-06
Recently I've been shying away from reviewing picture books. Not out of any particular dislike of them, of course. I just hadn't run across one recently that really whet my whistle. Earlier in the year I heard some librarians commenting on the various picture books of 2006 that struck them as particularly fine. One title that cropped up was Elisha Cooper's, "Beach". I'd seen the cover before and there wasn't much there to lead me to think of it as a strong contender for awards. Pretty cover, yes. Oh, the same author as created "Magic Thinks Big"? Nice, nice. Big format, so that's enjoyable. With all these thoughts sloshing about in my head, it wasn't really until I was on my lunch break one day that I thought to go ahead and, oh I don't know, pick it up and read it. I found myself charmed. Utterly and wholly charmed. I'm not saying "Beach" is gonna totally blow away all your conceptions of what a beach picture book constitutes. I'm just saying that alongside David Wiesner's, "Flotsam", and Chris Gall's, "Dear Fish", there has never been a better time for shore-related picture book fare.
Open the book and we've a two-page spread of an empty beach, blue sky above, water stretching far into the distance. Says the book cheerily, "Away to the beach! Away to sand and salt water, to rolling dunes and pounding waves". Turn the page and three separate images of the beach meet your eye. In each one, more and more people crop up. This section is without text. Turn the page again then. Twelve small scenarios are here, each one showing different people settling into their beachgoing routines. They're all familiar. The people who inch into the water a miniscule centimeter at a time. Or the person who inflates a large inner tube... and then just walks into the water up to her ankles. The people frolic and the waves, "come in hills and valleys, in mountains and canyons, in craggy peaks and sweeping plains". Meticulously Cooper captures the sounds, the tastes, and even the detritus that constitutes a day at the beach. And at the end, the three panels of the shore become six, and people start to go home. "Sand is everywhere - between toes and in bathing suits and inside ears. Inside, too, is the motion of the waves, the knowledge of a day well spent, a day to remember when the beach is far away".
First of all, this book stands at an impressive 12.3 x 10.2 inches. So right off the bat you find that you're dealing with an impressive beastie. Then the color scheme starts to hit you. The endpapers are all soft sea-friendly greens, pinks, blues, and brown/purples. These are the colors you find near the ocean, captured perfectly by Mr. Cooper. Now in the past I've always found Cooper's people and animals to be almost too bulky to thoroughly enjoy. With "Beach" this problem is perfectly alleviated. It's like Cooper went to the Chris Ware School of Tiny Humans (albeit with a child-friendly touch). The people in this book are little more than small, penciled figures. You cannot make out their individual features or digits, and it doesn't matter a bit. Somehow, Cooper is able to suggest a whole range of emotion, movement, and energy with his tiny people. The woman who changes into her swimsuit under her towel makes all the awkward movements, arms akimbo and body twisted, you'd expect from such an attempt. The dog that dives into the waves to retrieve some driftwood splashes and cavorts in a thoroughly canine manner. This kind of miniscule study of the human (or animal) figure is deeply impressive. More importantly, it's interesting in a way that kids will find particularly fun.
But it was Cooper's language that surprised me the most about this book. First of all, the little situations involving the beachgoing crowd are almost Zen at times. "A woman lathers on sunscreen and reaches for the spot that cannot be reached". Or better still, "A boy and a girl ride their parents in a crab race". "A man wades with his baby, keeping an eye out for jellyfish". "Seagulls pull their heads tight into their shoulders and watch everyone leave". And then the descriptions grow broader as the illustrator starts to pull back from the individuals. We see a couple benches under a roof and the text reads, "Picnic baskets open with peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, peaches, cookies, and iced tea. Towels get sticky. After lunch, children walk past the outdoor showers to the truck that sells ice-cream sandwiches". This book is now begging to be read aloud. And, quite frankly, you'd have to be made out of stone itself not to crave an ice-cream sandwich after the reading.
Maybe because "Beach" brought to mind all those wonderful Anno books I read as a child ("Anno's Journey", "Anno's USA", "Anno's Spain", and so forth) I really connected with this tale of average people doing something as basic and familiar as relaxing on the shore. This has all the makings of a personal family classic to be treasured for years to come. I don't know if the hungry masses will be as taken in by its charms, but I personally feel that this is a wonder of a picture book. A pure unadulterated delight.
a superb book with rare appeal for grown-ups as well as children 2006-08-15
"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.
beautiful and evocative 2006-08-07
I think my favorite thing about this book is the way it evokes, rather than dictates, a mood. It does this through its spare prose, sure. (The author is a very precise writer). More, though, it conveys mood through the watercolors. Some are complex, some are simple. Some are enormous (even bigger, it seems, than the pages of this already big book). Neither the pictures nor the prose push me around, they just let me be--soaking in the colors, the forms, the mood. Cooper really does have a great sense of color, by the way.
I don't have children, so I can't suggest whether it's the best kids' book. But I will say that, as an adult, I really do appreciate how sublime (definitely not a kids' word) the book is.
Good Memories 2006-07-05
I love that the memories of so many diferent days spent on many different beaches can all be reflected in a few succinct sentences and illustrations. Really nice. It will be a good gift to many.
