It is your Lucky Day to live through The Monster Storm at Seashell Key, an tourist island where the children of the people who work there explore their world and attend school. This chapter book series containing diversity and good pictures, peaks with the second book of the series. I read all of these through the local library system.
Seashell Key Series by Lourdes Heuer (author) and Lynnor Bontigao (illustrator)
Book 1: Seashell Key
Book 2: The Monster Storm
Book 3: The Lucky Day
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for SEASHELL KEY
Seashell Key is the first in author Lourdes Heuer and award-winning illustrator Lynnor Bontigao’s young chapter book series―perfect for fans of Princess in Black and Mercy Watson, about a diverse community of kids living in a beautiful seaside town!
Welcome to Seashell Key! Summer is here, and the children of this cozy coastal town are ready to welcome visitors to their little oasis. There’s Mateo, who runs his little kite-making business, Sail and Soar, alongside his dad’s Sky and Sea store; Sasha and Sophia, who comb the seashore next to their mother’s sandwich stand; and Eli, Ezra, and Elana, who live in the cozy-but-cramped lighthouse and entertain passing tourists with tall tales.
Filled with a vibrant cast and lots of summery fun, this is the start of an exciting chapter book series.
MY REVIEW for SEASHELL KEY
A pleasant child book with a mix of female and male characters (in equal number for the children!).
Things that could have been better:
(1) The female and male division of “traditional” to be stronger than it is. Mateo’s (single?) father run a retail shop and flies a plane; Sasha & Sophia’s (single?) mother owns a lunch counter and the kids also eat at Mrs. Cerise’s fruit stand. So small business owners, but split along gender lines for “traditional” tasks of food preparation. (Parent genders match their children.)
(2) Children interests are also gender-coded. Mateo makes kits, Sasha draws pictures, Sophia dances-writes poetry-and-sings, Eli is interested in investigation, Ezra in science fiction, and (yay for breaking tradition) Elana in digging-and-archeology.
(3) The very small discouragement of school and keeping things clean. “Sometimes she suggests they study. Sometimes she suggests they clean. These are both terrible, terrible suggestions.” But the person reacting is the younger sister who is a disorganized artistic type. With parent supervision of a child reading this section, the parent can point out Sasha is an organized person and Sophia is a disorganized person, but both are able to function and get things done is fine, thereby mitigating the school bashing. I get tired of the constant school bashing in children’s books. We don’t have to say it is great, but nor do we need to disparage it. School, like work, is a fact of life. It has good and bad.
Things that are great:
1) Seeing tourists show up again and again throughout the book. Parents can work with children to take apart the pictures. The illustrator, Lynnor Bontigao, has done an amazing job.
2) All the different animals Sasha draws.
3) All the different kites Mateo makes.
4) The celebration of imagination of all the children.
(Homeschoolers and summer-vacationers can definitely use any of the four stories within this book as a jumping point for different activities.)
Each of the four stories/”acts” has a story arc of three chapters. Introduction of the characters, problem/want to solve, and the action of solving it. The children each come up with their own solutions to their need-to-explore/fight-the-boredom at the start of summer.
The bedrock for this series is community, in particular the tourist community of Seashell Key and the children of the year-round residents.
Plus a star for diversity. Checked out from the local library.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE MONSTER STORM
The Monster Storm is the second book in author Lourdes Heuer and award-winning illustrator Lynnor Bontigao’s young chapter book series Seashell Key―perfect for fans of Princess in Black and Mercy Watson―about a diverse community of kids living in a beautiful seaside town!
It’s fall on the island of Seashell Key! A monster storm is on the horizon, but that won’t stop Mateo from entering the fall festival competitions, or Sophia and Sasha from showing off their swimming skills. When the storm finally hits, Eli, Ezra, and Elana gather around the flashlight to tell spooky stories about the monster of Seashell Key―that is if they can agree on what the monster actually is! When the storm finally passes, the gang has to work together to find Pixie the dog―hopefully before the monster of Seashell Key finds her!
Filled with a vibrant cast and lots of fall fun, this is a great addition to an exciting new chapter book series.
MY REVIEW for THE MONSTER STORM
Wow, the second of the series is a step above for children’s books.
Again, amazing illustrations by Lynnor Bontigao. The chapter where Eli, Ezra, and Elana ride out the storm in the lighthouse by telling spooky stories have all three children in the pictures of the stories. Each picture has so many hidden details, starting with the kites of the first page, no doubt made by Mateo. Going through the pictures with a new reader will be an adventure in-and-of-itself.
The format is the same as the first book of the series – this time the first day of fall instead of the first day of summer for Seashell Key. Instead of tourists in the background, we have the building of a storm and dealing with the day after. Four Acts, each of the first three concentrating on one family group/child then finally collecting them all for a final adventure. Each act has three chapters.
With the introductions completed in the first book, this time we dive right into the stories. Mateo is a maker, so be prepared to have the child-reader want to emulate his creations from a banana-cheese-sour-cream pie to the no-scarecow. Each child we previously met personality shines through during the competition. Sasha embrace of reality to Sophia’s love of imagination; these two are so clearly different from each other, but their sibling bond still comes through. Elana’s history and archelogy interest makes the obvious choice of a ghost for the costume contest.
The final act, where the beat of the storytelling from the “scary” stories being repeated when they discover the green water monster is perfect. (If you like to watch for great storytelling by an author.)
Also, if you are a storyteller and want to see how it is done, this is a excellent book to pick apart for character building and connecting groups of characters together. I have read several “adult” books where every scene is isolated and the characters in one scene is not connected to the next, aside from the main character – Seashell Key seamlessly has the isolated groups come together. If you are a person who loves character building, this series is doing it well.
Library book.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE LUCKY DAY
The Lucky Day is the third book from author Lourdes Heuer and award-winning illustrator Lynnor Bontigao’s young chapter-book series—perfect for fans of Princess in Black and Mercy Watson—about the adventures of a diverse community of kids living in a beautiful seaside town.
It’s the last day of school before spring break, but there’s still so much to do! Mateo is on a mission to catch a leprechaun, and Sasha and Sophia can’t wait to work on their school garden. Elena just wants to read about dinosaurs, but when she finds a secret map in her textbook, she’ll need all her friends to help her find the treasure of Seashell Key—and make a treasure map of their own!
Filled with a vibrant cast and lots of spring fun, this is a great addition to an exciting new chapter book series.
MY REVIEW for THE LUCKY DAY
I absolutely adored the second book of this series. This third book returns to one of my ongoing objections of children’s book: the maligning of school.
“Tomorrow is the start of spring break. But today is a school day. Bad luck!”
Then the day goes on to be a wonderful day of school, the first day of spring.
Illustrations by Lynnor Bontigao continue to support the narrative, while also providing interaction for young readers who may still be more interested in the pictures than in reading. The structure of four acts persists, though this time the children are separated by age group as appropriate for school. Mateo and Eli are first in Math class, and like the previous first acts of the book series, Mateo makes things. Sasha, Sophia, and Ezra are together in Science class; all three bringing their unique energies to a gardening project. Elena makes friends with a new kid in language arts. And the fourth act, everyone is together in art class and then after-school.
The series has lots of cool ideas of projects to do with a homeschooler or active child of the kindergarten through third grade age. The children in the narrative aren’t always perfect angels, but they are always exploring, figuring out things to do, and making things happen. There is agency here. There is diversity in the tourist town the children live in, both in the adults and in the children.
Checked out from the library.