Ladybug Girl at the Beach

Ladybug Girl at the Beach by David Soman and Jacky Davis

Rating: 4 stars

We've fallen into the Ladybug Girl and Fancy Nancy series.  Help!

They are both wildly popular; I think each is okay.  I like Ladybug Girl a little more--she's more adventurous and independent and tough than Fancy Nancy seems to be.  We have read most of the Ladybug Girl series, but we've only read a few of the zillions of Fancy Nancy books.  When our first grade neighbor, someone Lorelei wholeheartedly adores, came off the school bus last week with a few Fancy Nancy books in her hands, Lorelei set her sight on reading all of them.  Oh my.

So, Ladybug Girl.

Ladybug Girl is a headstrong little girl with an older brother who usually doesn't pay much attention to her.  (He is not very kind to her; this is one my least favorite things about the series.)  Her best buddy is her basset hound, Bingo.  While she is brave and tough, her chutzpah sometimes borders on brattiness. 

But this book is one of my favorites, mostly because, as my sister put it, "It explains all the sensations of the beach."  Ladybug Girl is totally excited to be at the beach and she just knows that she's going to love it, but...she didn't realize how big and scary the ocean would be once you got up close to it.  So she does everything except go into the ocean--dig sand castles, fly a kite, run around. 

She carefully tries to go in, but the ocean almost pushes her over, and then nearly drags her in after planting her ankles into the soft sand.  If you've ever stood in front of the ocean as a wave washes in, and then out, you know exactly what she's talking about.  Which is kind of fun, especially for Lorelei who is also afraid of the ocean.  (On her first trip she wouldn't even step onto the sand.  We could have walked a mile away from her and Ben, and when we returned they both would have been sitting directly on the towel, feet as far away from the edge as possible!)  By the end, Ladybug Girl, who seems about 4 years old, wades into the water all by herself.  Hooray!

I plan on taking this book with us (along with a few dozen others, of course) when we head to the beach this fall.