Tomorrow is the first day of summer, which means vacation for Perfect Picture Book Friday until September.
What better way to kick off summer than with a wonderful beach story?!
Title: The Sandcastle That Lola Built
Written By: Megan Maynor
Illustrated By: Kate Berube
Knopf Books For Young Readers, May 2018, fiction
Suitable For Ages: 3-5
Themes/Topics: seasons (summer), cooperation, perseverance, cumulative tale
text copyright Megan Maynor 2028, illustration copyright Kate Berube 2018, Knopf
Opening: “This is the sandcastle that Lola built.”
Brief Synopsis: Lola is building a sandcastle. One challenge after another is surmounted by resourcefulness and cooperation. Until the wave…! Will Lola ever get that sandcastle built?
text copyright Megan Maynor 2028, illustration copyright Kate Berube 2018, Knopf
Links To Resources: design and build your own sandcastle at the beach, playground, or your own back yard! Draw a picture of what you think would be the perfect sandcastle. Write your own cumulative tale about something that gets bigger and bigger, or more and more complicated, or crazier and crazier!
Why I Like This Book: I love this book because the story is cheerful and friendly and the illustrations are sunny and fun. Lola is trying to build a sandcastle to signal mermaids, but first a foot kicks it over, than a bulldozer digs into it, then a bucket of shells falls on it… In each case, Lola cheerfully invites the newcomer to join in, recruiting them to build protective walls, dig a surrounding moat, lay a pathway of shells… and the sandcastle becomes better and better the more children join in. When the wave comes along and washes Lola’s beautiful castle out to sea she despairs of ever seeing the mermaids (who appear in the clouds above her), but her new friends encourage her and are keen to try again. It’s a lovely story of determination, friendship, and cooperation all at the beautiful, sunny, summer beach! You’ll want to pack a copy in your beach bag 😊
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do 😊
text copyright Megan Maynor 2028, illustration copyright Kate Berube 2018, Knopf
For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.
PPBF folks, please add your titles and post-specific links (and any other info you feel like filling out 😊 ) to the form below so we can all come see what fabulous picture books you’ve chosen to share this week!
Have a fantastic summer, everyone!!! There will be sporadic posts here during the rest of June and July – mostly a few Tuesday Debuts unless anyone signs up for Would You Read It, or I get the hankering for another hare-brained scheme 😊, but a bit of a blog vacation so enjoy reading and writing and sunning and funning! 😊
Susanna Leonard Hill 
Susanna, I love your description of this book. I haven’t seen it and am excited to add it to my TBR pile! The illustration of the kids building the castle reminds me of so many days at the beach with my kids. I can’t wait to read this one.
Have a wonderful summer, Susanna. I will miss reading your posts!
This book about building a sandcastle took me back to my childhood, playing on the beach with my grandmother on a visit to see her in Germany when I was about five. I heaped the sand into a small mound and seemed satisfied with my meager castle. Then, my grandmother showed me how I could make my castle bigger, using a bucket, and she showed me how to make it elegant with seashells. I’m looking forward to reading The Sandcastle That Lola Built. Thanks for sharing it on the last day of PPBF. I hope you have a wonderful summer vacation.
Happy Summer indeed!
This book looks like fun. If there were in-library summer reading programs this year, it would be fun to have a sand-castle building contest. Hmmm, maybe some library is clever enough to figure out how to do that online.
We are on the same beachy page today, Susanna! I love the idea of mermaid clouds and a child building sandcastles to draw the interest of mermaids. What a perfect book to start the summer! Hope yours is great! See you in September.
Very nostalgic story. It will take many of us back to the day we built sandcastles and watched them wash away by the tides. And the beacg time we spent with our children building sandcastles. Perfect share for the summer months!
A perfect summer story, Susanna…I remember staying with my grandmother for a week every summer…all the grandkids got their week in the country with her. She lived in Brooklyn and one day during that magical week, she’d take me to the beach at Coney Island. I even got to choose which way we would go…by bus, trolley or train. And the sand castles I built are among my fondest memories.
I tried leaving a message twice, but three’s a charm! hoping summer slows you down so I might have a chance to catch up with you!
I’m going to order this book from my library. I love beach stories and making sand castles. Drip castles are my specialty. Thanks for the post!
Too cute! Longing for a day at the beach and to read about Lola!