Matthew enters a contest at the beach and builds an unbelievable sand castle.

Holly Hobbie, her family, and friends go to the beach for the Brightside Beach Sand Castle Contest.

Liz deals with some unfriendly competition at the beach and tries to rescue a baby octopus in the eleventh book of The Critter Club series. Liz and her family are at the beach! Liz loves building sand sculptures, so when she sees a flyer for a sand castle competition, of course she enters. She thinks she’s found a new friend when she meets her neighbor Tommy, who is also competing, but Tommy’s not so nice. He teases Liz about the castle she’s building and he laughs when one of the pieces caves in. Then Liz’s castle gets ruined overnight! It’s the day of the contest judging, and Liz no longer has anything to enter. Did Tommy destroy Liz’s sand castle? Plus, Liz finds a baby octopus that needs help! Will she be able to get the octopus back in the ocean and swimming again? With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, The Critter Club chapter books are perfect for beginning readers!

While vacationing at a lake, Nancy, Bess, and George have their eyes on first prize in the annual sand castle contest. They use special colored sand and carefully build the castle to look like the ones they researched at the library. If the girls win, they’ll get their picture in the local paper and all the ice cream they can eat. But before judging begins, someone wrecks the girls’ castle and writes a mean message in the sand. Nancy and her friends will have to dig deep to get back into the contest before it’s too late!

The trucks of Trucktown count from 1 to 10 using sandcastles.

When it comes to the environment, a community must work together. Cora is excited to enter the local sandcastle-building contest—until the contest is canceled due to litter at the beach. Determined to help save their favorite place, Cora and Mama get to work picking up the single-use plastics that have washed onto the shore. It will take more than four hands to clean up the beach, but Cora is just getting started.

When Danny wants to win the sand castle contest, his dinosaur friend, who has never been to the beach before, is eager to help.