Young readers learn patterns using shapes found on the seashore.

Simple text and pictures describe the life on a seashore.

Introduces, in simple text and photographs, the characteristics of some of the animals and plants that can be found at the seashore. Includes a sea urchin, seagull, barnacle, crab, sea star, seaweed, and driftwood.

"Twice a day when the tide goes out, an astonishing world is revealed in the tide pools that form along the Pacific Coast. Some of the creatures that live here look like stone. Others look like plants. Some move so slowly it's hard to tell if they're moving at all, while others are so fast you're not sure you really saw them. The biggest animals in the pool are smaller than your hand, while the smallest can't be seen at all without a microscope....

The week of her tenth birthday, Alice and her parents go to Sanibel Island, Florida, just as they do every year, but this time some of the people who are always there are missing and some new people have come, which unsettles Alice, who wants things to be exactly the same as they alway are.