"A BEACH TAIL"

     Like many of you, my Labor Day holiday is over and it's back to work...somewhere....  Lots of us work in offices, many of us work outside, others of us are traveling for our businesses.  It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, the Labor Day holiday is over.  September is in full bloom and we must move with the tide.
     Ah!  Did I say "tide"?  For some reason, my thoughts of the beach never leave me.
     So, it wasn't a surprise when I came in to work today and passed the checked-in books that I saw a children's book with the title "A Beach Tail."  And because my curiosity is always on high, I picked up the book and took it to the office for a fast read. 
     I am a lover of children's books and this one shows a little African-American boy on the cover with a stick in his hand as he digs in the sand.
     I wasn't disappointed with the book at all.  The pictures are gorgeous.  They look as if they've been painted with sand, lots of shades of brown and tan, soft blues and reds.
     Gregory is the little boy's name and he's at the beach with his dad.  Like all good parents, Dad tells Gregory as he draws a lion in the sand, a lion he's named Sandy, that he's not to go in the water and he's not to leave Sandy.  And Gregory promises he won't.
     As Dad sits under a blue umbrella on a dolphin towel, Gregory, with stick in hand, makes the lion's tail grow longer and longer.  It's during the length of the lion's tail that the story is told, as it circles around a purple jellyfish, goes past an old sand castle, zig-zags around a golden horseshoe crab, on an on down the beach, until Gregory realizes he can no longer see Dad and the blue umbrella.
     Does that make you wonder what happens next?   Well, good then.  It's a book to check out even if you don't have a child to read it to.  The pictures bring back good times at the beach, good times not only for children, but of the pleasures adults have at the beach also.
     I can close my eyes and see the waves rolling in, smell the beachy air of fish and birds, see the gulls and sandpipers and pelicans, listen to the music of everything around me.
     Sure, September is here and Labor Day is gone, but here in South Georgia we're not too far from an ocean beach no matter which direction we go (excluding beaches at lakes, several of which are to the north of us).
     But there's one way you can always keep a beach nearby.  We have lots of good books and audio books at our library about beaches.  Of course, there are always the novels (try reading those by Dorothea Benton Frank) and the nonfictions (try those about Jekyll Island and Cumberland and the islands of the Golden Coast of Georgia).
     Oh, yes, and remember...September is National Library Card Sign-up Month at libraries all across the nation.  If you don't have a library card, you're missing one of the most important cards you can keep in your wallet or purse. It's a guaranteed way of getting to the beach even when you have to wait until the next holiday to get to the real thing.
     That book I read...well, it's by Karen Lynn Williams and the illustrations are by Floyd Cooper.  If you're lucky and want to read it, you might find it in the Children's Library, unless it's already checked out again.