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ENCHANTED BEACH by Esther Freud

ENCHANTED BEACH

by Esther Freud ; illustrated by Emma Chinnery

Pub Date: June 3rd, 2025
ISBN: 9781536243628
Publisher: Candlewick

A love letter to the beach.

While most seaside tales are set in summertime, this offering glories in all the seasons. A family of four romps on the shore in summer, autumn, winter, and spring, complete with a polar plunge scene following a spread portraying them making their New Year’s Eve resolutions. The text is mostly delivered in rhyming verse, with a singsong cadence that begs to be read aloud, but it’s unfortunately interrupted by some awkward breaks in rhythm. The ear-pleasing couplet “When it’s warm, I jump the waves. / Low or high, I leap. I’m brave!” is followed by, “When it’s hot, I swim and float and sail in my Viking boat,” which seems to be missing a syllable and has no line break. Or, near book’s end: “The sun sets red behind the dunes. / The lighthouse sends its brightest beams,” which doesn’t seem to make any attempt at maintaining rhyme or rhythm. Still, the delightful, loose-lined images, reminiscent of the work of Quentin Blake or Simon James, will invite readers to pore over the pages and revel in the text’s unusual depiction of the beach throughout the year. The family is light-skinned; other beachgoers are diverse.

Bumpy text may make for a challenging read-aloud, but readers will pore over the enchanting visuals.

(Picture book. 3-6)