Summer, 1924. Three siblings, Ted, Janet, and their spirited little brother Trouble, are about to experience the adventure of a lifetime. It begins with a dazzling circus parade and a near-disastrous encounter with an elephant (pure Trouble), then leads the Martin family to Sunset Beach, where endless days of sand, surf, and salty discovery await. But between crab-catching expeditions and sand tunnel explorations, something mysterious washes ashore, and suddenly the children's summer vacation becomes a genuine mystery. Garis writes with the kind of warm, punchy prose that made serials sing: every chapter ends with a hook, every scene crackles with sibling banter and small-scale危机. There's a shark. There's drifting. There's a secret washed up in the sand that nobody can explain. What makes this book endure isn't just its gentle adventures, it's the way it captures a particular American childhood, one where children roam free, parents are kindly but distant enough for kids to have real escapades, and the line between mischief and danger is refreshingly blurred. Perfect for readers who grew up on Boxcar Children and readers who wish they had.
