Was unable to download this book. Therefore unable to read. However I will give 4 stars as comparing it to other aya and Papaya book.

The Aya and Papaya series is cute and always has a lesson for young children. This one has the family heading off to the beach. We see the family getting ready for this anticipated outing. When Aya and Papaya build a sandcastle, Aya is excited, until a wave washes it away. Aya gets very upset and her sister steps in to help her understand what happened and that they can try again. Of course the whole family gets in on building a new castle. The illustrations are bright and colourful and my granddaughter always enjoys them. I found the text in this one a bit more difficult for younger children to understand and I had to explain what they were saying to my granddaughter. My grandson kept asking where the mom was, as she was mentioned but we didn't see her and when Aya got upset, it was her sister that helped her not mom, which is what he was expecting. Not a big issue, just something that caused the flow of the story to stop as he kept asking. It gave me the opportunity to talk about older brothers and sisters helping which was nice as he is the oldest of three. Overall, this was another cute entry into this series.

Aya is excited to spend the day at the beach with her family. When she arrives she decides to build a sandcastle. After the sea washes it away, Aya is encouraged by her family to rebuild, creating a bigger and better sandcastle that she and the family work on and play in together.

A simple story encouraging children to persevere when things don't quite go to plan.

The story was easy to engage with and I'm sure many children could relate to Aya's troubles when her first sandcastle is washed away. I did feel there could have been a bit more of a focus on the challenge she faced as there was a lot about Aya's excitement at going on her trip.

I have read a few books now with Aya and Papaya and this was another good addition to the series.

I liked that the focus was on if at first you don’t succeed, or things go wrong, pull your socks up and go again. It has a really positive message for young children and I really liked that about the book.

The images are lovely and the character Aya is quite like my daughter, Ava so naturally that has become the name of the main character in the book! It is 4 stars from me for this one – highly recommended!

A very cute, easy to follow, and beautifully illustrated story about never giving up! Good for the little ones :)

A wonderful tale about perseverance and never giving up. A really good story with a nice moral. The illustrations were cute too. Fab book.

+received from netgalley for honest review* Cute simplistic art style, the story is cute too, great book for a read along with kids.

This book is very cute, and my four year old loved the story. It was a nice book for me to read too.

What A Child Will Love: The main character, Aya is very relate-able for a young child. She is excited about her beach trip, she has a special toy that she must find, and she gets sad when something is ruined. My daughter really enjoyed the fun sandcastle building in this story and the imagination that Aya used to make it a special castle.

What I Loved: Aya's sadness over her sandcastle being ruined by a wave was expertly handled by her family. It gave a child a nice solution to a problem. At the end of the book, the author recapped what had happened at the beach and Aya recalled what she did to make it better. I thought it was a nice ending to remind a child of how they can turn a problem into something new.

To Read or Not To Read: This book is age appropriate for pre-k through maybe 2nd grade. The book features imagination, problem solving, and family.

What's This Book About Anyway?
Aya wakes up so excited for Beach Day! She must first find her special doll Papaya, and then she's ready to go! Aya and her family have a picnic breakfast at the beach and then spend time making sandcastles. An enormous wave comes and takes out her beautiful castle. Aya is heartbroken. Her family helps her to make it ok and they build an even bigger sandcastle in a better location. They decorate it and pretend to be royalty. It's a fun story with a nice lesson.

Thank you to NetGalley and Troubador Publishing for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

It was just okay. This is a nice enough story with cute illustrations but nothing that 'wowed' me unfortunately.

Aya is relateable to small children and teaches to never give up. If you fail? Try,try again. A plus to any child's library.

This is probably the weakest of the Aya and Papaya books that I've read so far. The story is bland (until it gets preachy), the writing is all over the place, and mummy... what's up with mummy?

Aya is all excited to go to the beach. Much of the story is taken up with prep for the outing. After they get to the shore, Aya builds a sandcastle... only to have it destroyed by the waves. Her family urges her to rebuild. She pretends she's a princess, and her siblings go and find shells for her. On the way home, she's basically given a lecture about trying again when something doesn't go right.

Do I have a problem with the basic message? No. But I'm not a fan of how it's delivered. Part of the problem is that the writing is kind of weak. And mummy... Okay, Aya's mummy is apparently in the story, but since she doesn't actually appear until near the end, you could be forgiven for being confused. When Aya's sandcastle is first destroyed, she starts screaming. The book states that her mummy hears her cries. You'd think that she'd then be the one to come and comfort her daughter. But you'd be wrong. Curiously, Lilo (Aya's older sister) steps in immediately after to console the child. The way this transition is written--with a long block of dialogue followed by a speech tag that shows us that Lilo is talking--is confusing. This happens twice. The second time is on the way home in the car. The way the dialogue is set up, it sounds like mummy is about to give Aya some advice. The next block of dialogue is long and kind of preachy... and only at the end do we realize it's the sister talking (again)! It seems like a weird speech for a teenage girl to give her little sister. Why was mummy pushed out of this story? At one point, Aya declares that her brother is a prince, her sister a princess, her daddy a king, and her mummy a queen. But one of the pictures shows the entire family--without mummy--standing in front of the sandcastle. Poor mummy!

The pictures are the same as in the other Aya and Papaya titles I've read: colourful and basic. They're just average for me.

It's the writing here (and the inexplicable shunning of mummy) that really irked me. I don't think I'd recommend this one.