It's a brutally hot summer in this sixth and final picture-book devoted to the adventures of Emma the witch, her woodland friends, and her two witchy tormentors, Dolores and Lavinia. When the latter head to the beach to get some relief, they can't leave well enough alone, and insist on taunting Emma & Co., and playing a nasty trick on them. Not to be outdone, the friends turn the tables, and Dolores and Lavinia are driven from their seaside holiday, leaving Emma and the animals to enjoy it in their place...

As I mentioned in my review of the previous picture-book in this series, Un-Happy New Year, Emma!, these books start to feel a little formulaic after a while. The basic story-line remains the same in all of them: Emma hopes that Dolores and Lavinia have reformed, they prove they haven't by doing something mean and nasty, and then Emma and her friends put them in their place by playing a clever trick on them. Emma at the Beach definitely follows this narrative trajectory, and is, like its predecessors, told exclusively through character dialogue. I think young children who like the character of Emma, or who enjoy stories in which the target of bullying gets their own back, will still find it very entertaining. For myself, I am glad to have read it, witchy picture-books being a pet project of mine, but cannot recommend it as a particularly outstanding example of the type. ( )