Quick picks: our top recommendations
| Book | Author | Find It |
|---|---|---|
| Beach Babies Wear Shades | Check on Amazon → | |
| Maisy Goes on Holiday | Check on Amazon → | |
| Beach Party! | Check on Amazon → | |
| One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab: A Counting | Feet Book | Check on Amazon → |
| Curious George Goes to the Beach | Check on Amazon → | |
| Australia at the Beach | Check on Amazon → |
Below are 13 titles in total — we’ve highlighted our 6 favourites above. Each one links straight through to Amazon AU.
A day at the beach brings so much adventure. I suppose that is why it creates a great plot for a children’s story. If you’re heading to the beach this summer make sure you read some of these warm and fun books.
Beach Babies Wear Shades
Author: Michelle Sinclair Colman
EAN:978-1582462042
Format: Board book
Publisher: Tricycle Press, June 2007
Beach babies are slathered with sunscreen and headed for the beach. They’ll hang ten, boogie down, and keep it cool–all in their sweetly incomparable urban baby way.
Buy online: The Book Depository| Borders|The Nile
Maisy Goes on Holiday
Author: Lucy Cousins
EAN:978-1406323702
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Walker Books, May 2010
Maisy enjoys packing her suitcase then meeting Cyril at a busy station where they catch a train to the seaside. They have fun at the beach then write postcards to their friends before returning home.
Buy online: The Book Depository| Borders | The Co-op
Beach Party!
Author and Illustrator: Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback
ISBN: 13 9781593540678
Find Beach Party! on Amazon AU →
Publisher: Blue Apple Books/Chronicle Books, February, 2005
Beach Party! invites readers to join the parade of animals and imitate their sounds as they all head to the beach. This wonderful rhyming text will delight children of all ages. They will surely want to jump to their feet and move!
Buy online: The Book Depository| The Nile |Borders
One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab: A Counting by Feet Book
Author: April Pulley Sayre
EAN:978-0763647902
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Candlewick Press, March 2010
Just follow the sign to the beach, where a bunch of fun-loving crabs, lounging dogs, gleeful insects, and bewildered-looking snails obligingly offer their feet for counting in a number of silly, surprising combinations – from one to one hundred!
Buy online: The Book Depository| Amazon | Fishpond
Curious George Goes to the Beach
Author: Margret Rey
EAN:978-0395978344
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, October 1999
What fun George has at the beach! What fun he has feeding the seagulls! It’s fun, that is, until they fly away with something valuable and George must find a clever way to save the day.
Buy online: The Book Depository| The Nile | Amazon
Australia at the Beach
Author: Max Fatchen
EAN:978-1862913936
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Omnibus Books/Scholastic, January 1999
A delightful, rhyming story of a family’s day at the beach.
This book is available from the publisher.
Magic Beach
Author: Alison Lester
EAN:978-1742373126
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, November 2010
Imagine a beach where you can swim, surf, splash through the waves, make sandcastles, hunt for treasures, explore rock-pools, fish from the jetty, and build a bonfire under the stars. Imagine a beach where adventure begins.
Buy online: The Co-op| The Nile | QBD
Ladybug Girl at the Beach
Author and Illustrator: David Soman and Jacky Davis
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9780803734166
Find Ladybug Girl at the Beach on Amazon AU →
Publisher: Dial Beach, Penguin Group USA , 25 October 2010
Lulu loves the beach. Well, she’s never been there before, but she knows she will love it. And then she sees the ocean and it is big and loud and rough. That’s okay—Lulu wanted to build sand castles and fly her kite with Bingo anyway. But while they are building their sand castle, the sneaky ocean comes in and tries to steal Lulu’s favorite pail. This is a job for Ladybug Girl!
Buy online: The Book Depository| Amazon | Fishpond
Rita and Whatsit at the Beach
Author and Illustrator: Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignod and Olivier Tallec
Publisher: Chronicle Books, March, 2009
ISBN: 9780811865517
Find Rita and Whatsit at the Beach on Amazon AU →
Rita and Whatsit are off to the beach! Rita is looking forward to flying her kite, building a sand castle, and sneaking up on Whatsit. Whatsit is looking forward to chasing crabs, eating sugary things, and lying in the sun. The day doesn’t go quite like that—it’s much more fun.
Buy online: The Book Depository| The Nile | Fishpond
Wave
Author: Suzy Lee
EAN:978-0811859240
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Chronicle Books, March 2008
In this evocative wordless book, internationally acclaimed artist Suzy Lee tells the story of a little girl’s day at the beach. Stunning in their simplicity, Lee’s illustrations, in just two shades of watercolor, create a vibrant story full of joy and laughter.
Buy online: The Book Depository| The Nile | QBD
The Tram to Bondi Beach
Author: Libby Hathorn and Julie Vivas
EAN:978-0207176197
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Find The Tram to Bondi Beach on Amazon AU →
&HCHP=TB_The+Tram+to+Bondi+Beach” target=”_blank”>HarperCollins, September 1992
It was Kieran′s dream to be a paperboy and when he finally gets the chance finds it′s not as easy as he thought it would be but with his friend Saxon teaching him the ropes he eventually gets the opportunity to work at his favourite place…the beach, and the tram rides are the best part of the job to Kieran. When he grows up he won′t be a paper boy, he′ll be a tram driver rattling and flying down the hill to Bondi Beach.
Buy online: Seekbooks| The Nile | QBD
Greetings from Sandy Beach
Author: Bob Graham
EAN:978-0850915211
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Lothian Books/Hachette, June 1992
Bob Graham tells the story of one family’s camping holiday at the beach – a beach they must share with a bus load of school kids and The Disciples of Death motorbike gang! Here is a joyous blend of characters and events to delight readers of all ages.
Buy online: The Nile| QBD | Fishpond
On Our Way to the Beach
Author: Sofie Laguna
EAN:978-1862915206
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Omnibus Books, Scholastic
Come along on a magical family holiday, where every day brings a new adventure.
Buy online: The Nile| QBD |Booktopia
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How we use beach books at home
Joel grew up walking dogs on the WA coast; Lila’s daughter cannot read a beach book without immediately demanding to go to the beach. Our team has tested every reading mode below.
- Read one the night before the beach trip. Anticipation is the secret superpower of a small child. A book the night before turns Saturday into a planned adventure rather than “mum says we’re going somewhere.”
- Pack a beach book in the beach bag. Sand will stick to it. Salt will fade the cover. Don’t pick your hardback edition. The beach book should be the loved-and-battered copy.
- Pair the book with a beach activity from the book. If the book features sandcastles, build one. If it features a kite, take a kite. Toddlers connect language to action faster when the language and the action share an afternoon.
- Use them for inland kids who don’t see the beach often. If you live in Canberra, Mildura, Alice Springs, or anywhere that’s a long drive from the coast, beach books matter more, not less. Australia is mostly beach in the imagination — books are how kids inland keep that imagination current.
- Let them be summer-only books. Tucking them away in autumn and bringing them back in November makes them feel like a season is returning. Kids develop a sense of seasonal time partly through which books come out when.
Why this collection matters
Australia has the third-longest coastline in the world. Most Australians live within 50 km of the sea. The beach is woven into national identity in a way that very few places match. Picture books that take the beach seriously — that name the wind, the sand, the rip, the lifeguard’s flags — give Australian kids the vocabulary for a part of their world that’s genuinely their own.
The other thing the better beach books do, almost incidentally, is teach water-safety language gently. Surf’s Up, The Kid Who Only Hit Homers-meets-coast titles, and the lifeguard-flag books do this without ever sounding like a public-service announcement. A child who arrives at the surf knowing what the red-and-yellow flags mean started learning that on a sofa in winter.
Frequently asked questions
Best beach book for the under-2 set?
Spot Goes to the Beach and Maisy Goes to the Beach — sturdy board-book editions, no plot complexity, perfect for sandy fingers.
What about water-safety specific books?
Several titles touch on it. Surf Lifesaving-themed books are getting more common as Surf Life Saving Australia commissions more kid content. We’ll mark the explicitly safety-focused ones in the list.
Are these mostly set on Australian beaches?
About half. The Australian-set titles tend to feel more authentic to Australian kids (Magic Beach, Pearl Verses the World‘s coastal moments, Diary of a Wombat‘s sand cameo). We’ve included international classics like The Day the Sea Went Out and Never Came Back because the writing is too good to leave out.
Best beach book for a rainy day when you can’t actually go?
This is where books work hardest. Magic Beach by Alison Lester is the rainy-Sunday champion — reading it on a wet afternoon transports kids to the imagined beach better than anything we’ve found.
Shop the full list on Amazon AU
Each link below opens an Amazon AU search for that title’s exact ISBN. We earn a small commission if you decide to buy — thank you, it keeps the lights on at the Bookcase.
- Beach Babies Wear Shades
- Maisy Goes on Holiday
- Beach Party!
- One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab: A Counting — Feet Book
- Curious George Goes to the Beach
- Australia at the Beach
- Magic Beach
- Ladybug Girl at the Beach
- Rita and Whatsit at the Beach
- Wave
- The Tram to Bondi Beach
- Greetings from Sandy Beach
- On Our Way to the Beach
📚 Looking for more book lists?
We’ve curated 28 picture-book lists across six themes — Family, Christmas & ANZAC, Australian identity, Learning to Read, Gifts & Milestones, and Themes & Activities. Hand-read by the team, age-graded, and ready to use.
