BLACK SAND BEACH

Nothing is as it seems at Black Sand Beach.

Dash is begrudgingly resigned to a summer spent at his family’s ramshackle vacation house at Black Sand Beach, “a place of mystery and intrigue where your darkest nightmares run alongside you as the waves lap at your toes.” Eager to escape the sometimes-overbearing family adults, Dash and the other kids—his verve-filled younger cousin, Andy; his even-tempered, fuchsia-haired older cousin, Eleanor; and his best friend, Lily—decide to explore. But strange things keep happening: The beach’s nonfunctioning lighthouse is, perhaps quite literally, calling to Dash, and when the kids investigate, they find vengeful ghosts, a monster, and Dash’s diary from last year—but it’s been six years since he’s been there. Perhaps most disturbing are the “changelings” introduced in the third and final chapter: sway-backed, bipedal, horse-headed creatures with protruding ribs and enormous, humanlike mouths on their abdomens. These unresolved mysteries will leave readers with more questions than answers and make them eager for the next volume in the projected series. All characters are white except for Lily, who appears black. In this context, an encounter with the changelings that finds the white vacationers mistaking a monstrous changeling for Lily carries troubling undertones. Thin lines, oversized facial features—Dash’s mother even looks remarkably like Lois from Family Guy—and clothing styles from the late 1990s create an early-aughts aesthetic.

Creepy, bizarre, and compelling.