‘By The Sea: Life Along The Coast’ Book Review

Reviewed by Emma Brailsford

From the moment this book arrived at my front door, I knew by the size of the packaging that I was going to adore this book.  ‘By The Sea: Life Along The Coast’ by Martin Haake and Judith Homoki is a large non-fiction book, bigger than your average book (27.2cm x 37 cm) which adds to its special appeal and makes it a wonderful book to share with others.  I read the book with a young child, and we enjoyed looking at the book both snuggled on the sofa and laying on the floor – the flexibility given by the size.  Being a teacher, I know that this book would also work well in the classroom with the children seated in front of the book.

‘By The Sea: Life Along The Coast’ was such an interesting read.  The content of information covered in this book was vast and contained subjects ranging from the history of the seaside to life today, sea creatures, coastal rainforests and well-known beach sights such as lighthouses – all the information presented on attractive double page spreads. Particular favourite pages of the child that I shared the book with were the pages on sea birds and creatures found in and under the sand.  The illustrations of the book, created by Martin Haake, were truly captivating; scenes containing a balance of vivid and muted hues with the small, necessary details to draw you in to the vista and allow you to become immersed in the information.  I appreciated that the wildlife, both plants and animals, were labelled on the illustration, along with short captions about the nature or specific details within the scene.  This meant that younger children could be entertained for hours studying the illustrations and labels whilst older children and adults could read the accompanying text for each double page spread – much of which contained facts, scientific names and interesting information which enabled all readers to discover new information – I certainly learnt lots of new knowledge each time that I dipped into the book.  Given the current concern about climate change, a topic which this book indeed covers, it would appear that now is the ideal time to read a book about the history of the world’s coastlines as well as learning how to protect them, and the flora and fauna within them, for generations to come.

‘By The Sea: Life Along The Coast’ would be the perfect gift for children and I would suggest that you could buy this book for all children within the age range of five to ten years old but as mentioned, the information presented goes well above this age range and could be accessed by both older children and adults.  This book is certainly one that will be cherished by my family and remain in pride of place on the bookshelf for many years to come.  In fact, I am keen to extend our library by purchasing the other books in the series!

The book is published in hardback, contains 64 pages and has the dimensions: 27.2cm x 37 cm.

Rating: 5/5

RRP £19.99

Stockist: Available from good booksellers. For stockists visit prestel.com

Product page hyperlink: https://prestelpublishing.penguinrandomhouse.de/book/By-the-Sea/Martin-Haake/Prestel-com/e615427.rhd