Surf’s Up, Creepy Stuff! (Ghost Patrol)

Read the title and look at the illustration on the cover. Then read the back-cover copy. Together, predict whether you think this story will be funny, scary, or a little of both.

• After Chapter 1, invite your child to describe how Andres feels about a day at the beach.

• In Chapter 2, Andres’s mother tells him that he has to go with Desmond’s family to the beach. Andres says, “It was time to leave the Safety Zone.” Talk about why “safety zone” might have two meanings. (Andres has to leave both his Safety Zone video game and the safety zone of his home.)

• Discuss why Dreary Beach might be an odd name for a beach.

• In Chapter 5, discuss what is unusual about the surfers Andres meets out in the waves. How does Zax describe them?

• After Chapter 10, invite your child to explain why the mersurfers have been trying to keep areas of the dunes and beach free of birds and humans.

By the end of the book, Andres discovers that a day at the beach can be “rad.” Share an activity that you once found, well, dreary that turned out to be “rad.” What’s the activity—and what caused your feelings about it to change?

Draw It!

Desmond’s family takes a carload of stuff to the beach! And the tent they set up on the beach is almost like a cabin—with electricity, furniture, and even an upstairs. Imagine that you can build a sandcastle big enough to hold all of your stuff—and you! Then draw your life-size sandcastle. (For ideas, turn to the illustration on pages 34–35 to see the sandcastle that Andres and Desmond built.) What will your castle look like on the outside? How many rooms will it have on the inside? Will there be an upstairs? And what will you put in it to make your day at the beach “rad”?

Literacy Tip

This book is told from the first-person point of view. That means that the reader sees everything through the eyes of the character telling the story—Andres. You know that the story is told from Andres's point of view because of Andres's use of the words I, me, and my.