AT THE BEACH

Harvey offers a set of aerial beach scenes for less maniacal Where’s Waldo? fans to pore over, featuring several dozen tiny vacationers sunning themselves, playing in the sand, visiting the nearby hamlet or generally mucking about. The views are linked by a series of inset, chatty postcards from the children of one family. They bear, along with casual mentions of cricket games and the Southern Cross, UFOs and sea monsters, references to some of the more amusing goings-on visible to viewers with sharp eyes: “Mr. McIntosh was chased by a shark. It must have been scared off by the taste of his shorts. And I saw a bird drop a poo on a kid’s hand.” Pair this read-between-the-lines tale with such similar epistolary outings as Jerdine Nolen’s Plantzilla Goes To Camp, illustrated by David Catrow (March 2006) or the granddaddy of them all, Alan Sherman and Lou Busch’s Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (A Letter From Camp), illustrated by Jack E. Davis (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)