Teenaged Isobel "Belly" Conklin, whose life revolves around spending the summer at her mother's best friend's beach house, reflects on the tragic events of the past year that changed her life forever.

Paddington visits the beach where he splashes in the ocean and builds a sand castle before being swept off in an adventure.

At the beach, Pinkalicious and her brother help a tiny mermaid, a merminnie, to go back home.

"Duck wants to go on an adventure. Goose doesn't. He doesn't see the point. After all, why would they go anywhere when they're happy right where they are? But then Goose sees the ocean and loves it. Who doesn't? Well, Duck, for one"--

"Penguin's tired of the snow and cold--so he decides to go on vacation! But where should he go? And what new friends will he meet along the way?"--

"Amelia Bedelia and her mother share a summer vacation home at the shore with her aunt Mary and her cousin Jason, who has a wicked sense of adventure and a nose for trouble"--

As her friends in the Critter Club animal shelter care for colorful aquarium fish, second-grader Liz and her family spend a long weekend at the beach, where Liz rescues a baby octopus and competes with an unfriendly young neighbor in a sand castle contest.

Magnolia is a little girl with a big idea, determination, and one very heavy upright piano that she insists on taking with her to the beach, but in a series of mishaps, Magnolia quickly learns that a piano does not mix well with sand, sun, and seagulls.

Illustrations and easy-to-read text relate a trip to the beach that features a man in a funny hat--or hat on a funny man, a sandy lunch and swimsuit, and a high-flying kite.

While waiting with family members for high tide to come in, a youngster who is very knowledgeable about the seashore and what lives there helps to build a raft.