The Golden Shore

Thirty-one fables. Thirty-one full-page ink plates. One golden mile of Florida shore. On the beach where Aesop's oldest truths come home to new water, a gull talks an osprey out of his breakfast, a loggerhead teaches a ballyhoo how races are really won, and a whale learns that no friend is too small. The Golden Shore brings the grand old tradition of the fable to Juno Beach, Florida - a world of sea turtles and shorebirds, lighthouses and fishing piers, sharks' teeth in the shell line and storms standing up out of the Gulf Stream. Every fable is about five minutes read aloud, every one ends with a moral worth keeping, and every one faces its own vintage-style pen-and-ink plate. The collection closes with a bonus tale for the grown-up reading aloud, and a true-facts guide to the real animals of Juno Beach - from the loggerheads that nest by the thousands to the spoonbill that is pink because of what she eats. Written to be read aloud. Built to be remembered. For the children of today, the grandparents who read to them, and the grandchildren they will someday read to in turn. Read them aloud. That's what they're for.