This quirky tale about a normal kid in an odd town (or is he an odd kid in a normal town?) ties a story together through vignettes about the various eccentricities of the mysterious friendly town. There's a day without gravity, a kid who gets stuck in bubblegum, mysterious spiders, some ace juvenile news reporting, and ultimately a strong message of friendship. Recommended for reluctant readers and because many of the chapters can be read as mini-stories, it is also a great option for a read-aloud.

Nothing but Wayside School will ever be Wayside School, but this collection of interconnected stories has a definite Wayside-adjacent vibe — and I mean that in the best possible way.

Davy’s the new kid in Topsea, where dogs are mythical and mermaids are real, gravity is turned off once a year for routine maintenance, and sometimes you get the locker at the bottom of the swimming pool. Just watch out for the tides and stay clear of the shady PTA, and you should be okay. It’s silly and odd, and it totally works. Alternating stories with newspaper articles, school newsletters, and excerpts from a town guidebook and — like Wayside — telling lots of student stories, this book has a quirky rhythm that makes it feel like a super-speedy read. I found it the perfect mix of whimsy and action — I think if you add one book from this post to your library list, it should be this one.

No matter how you say it, this book is just odd! And that's what I loved about it! It's the story of Davy a new kid in the town of Topsea where the rules are unexpected, his locker is at the bottom of the school pool and everyone else acts like this is all completely normal! With a unique setting, quirky characters and a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, this book is a perfect fit for the kids looking for something just a little bit different!

A Friendly Town That's Almost Always by the Ocean is a middle grade novel written by Kir Fox, M. Shelley Coats. It was illustrated by Rachel Sanson. In Topsea the coves are bottomless and the pier has no end in sight. There's a high tide and a low tide and a vanishing tide. Dogs are a myth, but mermaids are totally real. And seaweed is the main ingredient in every meal-watch out, it might just start chewing you back!

New kid Davy definitely thinks Topsea is strange. His mom keeps saying they'll get used to life in their new town-it's just the way things are on the coast! But after his first day at Topsea School, Davy finds himself wondering: Why is his locker all the way at the bottom of the school swimming pool? Why can't anyone remember his name? (It's Davy!) And why does everyone act like all of this is normal?! Through newspaper articles, stories, surveys, notifications, and more, follow Davy and the rest of Ms. Grimalkin's fifth grade class through the weird world of Topsea. (Whatever you do, don't make eye contact with the rubber ducks.)

A Friendly Town That's Almost Always by the Ocean is a story that is not only about a very strange town, and the unusual activity in it. It is also about finding your interests and yourself. I like that Davy seems like a perfectly normal boy, just trying to deal with all the recent changes in his life and move forward. He needs to deal with the loss of his father, and moving to a new town- something that many will be able to relate to in one way or another. However, to make settling in a bit harder the town and school are more than a little odd. A school locker at the bottom of the swimming pool, creepy cats, odd classes, and dogs being a myth are only the start of the oddities. Normal problems like being heard when you are small and friends with bigger personalities, being believed when you like to exaggerate, and other friendship dynamics are all within the pages as well. The balance of mundane and ridiculous keep the story fun and forward moving while still getting to the heart of the matter with fitting in and friendships. The artwork adds an extra layer of fun and details to the story, engaging readers even further in the story. I think this will be a great read, and think it might appeal to struggling or reluctant readers as well as more advanced readers.

A Friendly Town That's Almost Always by the Ocean is a fun and quirky read. I enjoyed the odd little town and unique characters. I think I need to explore this series further.

A fun, imaginative read. This book is mix of a variety elements that make up a charming, yet very unique middle grade story. Like Davy and his classmates discover, the harder you try to figure out anything that's happening in Topsea, the harder it is to understand all that's going. That's the part of what makes this story so fun to read. The trick is to just go with the flow when reading this story. Trust us!

Topsea is definitely the strangest place I've ever visited. It's a town of many secrets and riddles. To call it a strange place would be an understatement. It's more unforgettable than anything. Just as Davy learns something new about the town from his classmates, he ends up uncovering even more intriguing information and myths. I'm definitely most intrigued with the legends. I'm very curious about how some of the town's basements have water in them, and some don't. That's just one of the many things I'm curious about. The rest you'll have to read about.

This story is definitely a fun, intriguing read. I have a feeling this book only scratched the surface of all this town's odd secrets. All the strange happenings through out this book made for a unforgettable adventure. I think it's safe to say that this story is unlike anything we've read before, and we're looking forward to it's sequel. I'm looking forward to when I can go back for another visit to Topsea.

This was a fun, absurd little book that reminded me of Sideways Story Wayside School and, as an adult, Welcome to Nightvale. The author has created a quirky community that will remain in the reader's heart and mind for a long time.

I have to admit, this book was an odd one. It reminded slightly of the Wayside School series by Louis Sachar, but only slightly. Everything about the town of Topsea is very strange, particularly the school, yet only Davy seems aware of its strangeness. He is finding his way as the new kid in this odd, quirky place, trying to find a way to fit in in a place that is not easy to find a normal to fit into.

In the middle, I felt like Davy wasn't always the main character, which was fine as long as there was a clear plot to follow. The trouble was, at times, I had trouble identifying what the plot was. Still, the book's strangeness was its humorous core. Every task, even the ones that would seem mundane elsewhere, was a unexpected trial with humorous outcomes. I have a feeling that I could entice some of my students to give this book, and the forthcoming series, a try. It's all kind of weird, but in a light, fun sort of way. There are some heavier elements to sort through, like children finding their place in their family, the community, and the broader world, or the death of a parent weighing on a child's psyche, but that doesn't derail the rest of the story.

In all, this book is going to find its following. It just needs to be presented to the fans of the strange. It's childlike sense of humor is going to carry it. I will keep an eye out for the next installment.

So- this was a strange book. Strange like Dr. Who or some other equally odd fandom. After I figured out that I wasn't supposed to figure it all out I enjoyed the ride through this weird, friendly town.

It’s tough moving to a new town, especially when you’re the only one that’s “normal”! Davey Jones is new to Topsea and isn’t sure how to fit in. Davey’s mom keeps assuring him that once he gets used to living there that everything will be okay. How when you live in a town where the peer is endless, cats have run the dogs into the ocean never to be seen again, watch hogs rove the town, mysterious crabs have invaded and run off the local crabs, there’s a troll under the pier, and nothing is what it seems especially the tides! Not to mention no one can even remember his name! Never trust the rubber ducks but more importantly don’t look directly into their eyes!
Strange things are continuously happening to Davey -like having his locker at the bottom of the swimming pool because the principal assured him it was the most suited for new students. Or having all of the class laugh at him when he says the dogs are not a myth! Because everyone in Topsea knows that mermaids are real, but dogs are a complete myth! Plus, all of his friends have their own unique, quirky personality that Davey is reluctant to trust. I believe this comes from being in a new town and worrying that no one really likes you, so Davey is afraid that since they can’t remember his name that they are not really his friends.
The Breakdown!
I really loved this little story of coming-of-age and finding out who you are. Davey has just been through the most traumatic events of his life, the loss of his father and the upheaval of his ordinary lifestyle to a completely new place. Where he came from, Davey was the oddball kid and didn’t fit in but in a Topsea he seems to be the only normal person.
I think my favorite parts of the story were the bulletins, the newsletter, the ever-changing tides, and the fun side characters. This whole story has so many allegories that I cannot name them all! I love that the principal’s name is Josephine (Jo) King – I see what you did there!- that the new kid is named Davy Jones and his locker is at the bottom of the pool and completely unattainable! (hmmm those authors are sly devils!) I look forward to new chapters to see what kind of tied the town was going to have! Kids are going to eat this book up! There is so much to discuss and so many things to discover I believe you reread this book so that I can go back and find all of the other fun allegories!
Characters I ADORED!
Earl Grey is a “teacup piglet” (I love this too! Earl Grey tea/teacup pig? YES’) who is actually a watch hog and grows to be very big by eating his bowl of oatmeal. The story would not be complete without the misadventures of the watch hog Earl Grey! He “squeals” on the cats when they were stealing the milk from the school and helps thin get untangled from the chewing gum wall that was trying to devour him! But my favorite part has to be on Unstable Gravity day when pigs really do fly!
Jules is an investigative reporter and discovers the mystery behind the big black crabs that have invaded Topsea! I really enjoyed reading her bulletins and featured pages in the newsletter!
Davey Jones is a very relatable and likable character; his flaws are easy for kids to pick up on and relate to. He’s very hesitant to fit into his new role in the town and at school. It’s almost as if he feels that if he doesn’t completely fit in then it all cannot be real, and he will go back to his former life and his dad will be there. He even struggles with who he is and tries to be exactly like his friends but when that doesn’t work out he realizes that he himself is special in his own way with the help of the cook Ricky or Nicky. (those two confused me!)
The reason I gave this book a 4.5 star was because the characters never seemed to really find their Zen and I got them a little muddled. I think if he had half the number of friends that the story would’ve been okay. I also believe that kids may not get all of the jokes and allegories because there’s so many of them and they aren’t very obvious. Though as an adult reading it I really enjoyed it, kids could have a tougher time following along and really appreciating the punchline. Even the town’s name Topsea because everything there is topsy-turvy.
Conclusion:
Overall, I would recommend this story in a heartbeat and I’m going to purchase a copy for my son’s fifth-grade class, so I can read it with them on parent involvement day! This book would be perfect for third to sixth-grade students! Any kids over that might think it’s a bit childish but that age group would simply adore it!

I feel really bad, but I am having a very hard time getting into this book. I love the concept and I am certainly not above silly/nonsense stories. I loved "Fortunately the Milk" and the books by Philip Reeve. For whatever reason, this one is just not quite grabbing me. I think it may be just a little TOO absurd for the reader - I'm not sure kids will really "get" the Davy Jones locker at the bottom of the pool. All the bits and pieces don't seem to be tying together. I really wanted to like it, but with each new oddity, I found myself getting more and more frustrated.

Welcome to Topsea, the strangest place you'll ever visit. In this town, the coves are bottomless and the pier has no end in sight. There's a high tide and a low tide... and a vanishing tide. Dogs are a myth, but mermaids are totally real. And seaweed is the main ingredient in every meal-watch out, it might just start chewing you back!

Davy was the new kid in town and as usual, all parents say: You will get used to shortly.
Hard for Davy; his locker was a the bottom of an endless pool, rock cats were always glaring at him, mail delivered by seagulls and a group of kids a kind of weird to him.
But what is abnormally normally?
Davy, thinking he was coming from a boring normal town trying to be “cool” and be part of the weirdness of Topsea? Or Being Davy weird in this normal town? Depends on the perspective you see it.
Lovely story, emotional, sweet and funky. Beautiful writing, easy to understand and very appropriate for a young reader.
The age of friendship, loyalty, being part of is so well depicted.

Looking forward to the next book.

Topsea definitely is a friendly little town, the positive characters, relationships, and interactions are what make this book great. Everyone is genuinely helpful and kind, the narrative doesn’t rely on tense characterization, conflict, or competitiveness to drive character relationships. The narrative is focused on just how weird Topsea is, and it takes that weirdness completely seriously. Basements with basements (that one should probably never go in), lockers at the bottom of swimming pools, gravity maintenance, and a (possibly) living bubblegum wall are all just part of the scenery as the kids in Topsea go about their daily lives. There is a lot of setup in this volume, I’m assuming this is the beginning of a series, with introductions to all the interesting kids and glimpses into their lives. I’m amazed by how much character exploration is achieved in such a short space, the kids come across as whole and multifaceted. I would have liked this one a bit better if there had been one overarching plotline that had resolved in the end, overall the book is made up of interconnected stories about each kid, which is very well done, I just kept expecting more to happen with some of the setup. I look forward to more in this series!

In this fun, if slightly choppy book, we are introduced to Davy and the very quirky town of Topsea. More like a series of vignettes than a cohesive chapter book, I am hoping there is a sequel or two to round out these fun characters.

A BIG Thank You to Netgalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing me an advanced reader copy of “A Friendly Town That's Almost Always by the Ocean!" by Kir Fox, M. Shelley Coats in exchange for my honest review.

Am I the only one who had mixed feelings about this book? I am seeing quite a lot of five star reviews out there for “Secrets of Topsea”, and the only term that comes to my mind for summing up this book is “meh”.

Don’t get me wrong. I love reading strange, bizarre books, particularly directed towards middle grade/YA that keeps you wondering on what’s going to happen next. This shows how creative the author is, and how far they will go out of the book to keep your attention to the story. This book had so many strange story arcs that included mermaids, missing dogs, trolls, anti-gravity and other quirky things to make it a memorable read. However, somewhere along the line, I started losing interest towards what was happening.

The main problem I had with this book was there was no plot or consistency. It is just random events that happen to Davy and his friends. I feel like the overall plot of the story was for Davy to adjust and come to terms with being accepted at Topsea, so it would have made sense for the author to just focus on his bizarre interactions with each of his friends. Instead, we get a separate stories of Talise looking at tide pools, and Quincy’s questions being stolen, that doesn’t have anything to do with Davy at all! Having said that, I did enjoy some of these small story arcs that didn’t have anything to do with the main character, like when Finn meets Billy under the boardwalk, or when Finn gets stuck in the chewing gum wall and Runa saves him. But again, looking back, these just seemed like fillers for the author to add on to the book to cover for the weak plot.

The illustrations by Rachel Sanson are cute and whimsical and compliment to the storylines. I also liked how each chapter begins or ends with snippets from the school newspaper or the survey form that Davy fills out.

I am sensing that this is not a standalone, but the first book in the series, from how the author has ended it. Maybe in the follow up we would get more answers as to what happened to the ice cream man and the Water Park. Hopefully, they author will make the story more consistent and interesting in book 2.

Overall, this was an average read that I would easily forget.

Such a fun book to read! As the main character, Davy Jones learns as he spends more time in Topsea, what is your normal might not be normal to everyone else. Now granted, Topsea is probably the most abnormal place Davy has ever been, but when he decides to start accepting things for what they are and just enjoying life in Topsea, he realizes not normal might be the best thing ever!
If you like books that are fun and you are willing to accept things just because, you will love this book! Why was Davy Jones locker at the bottom of the pool? Why not? Why do the people of Topsea believe that mermaids once existed, but think dogs are myths? Who knows? Just read for the enjoyment and have fun with the story

Practically Perfect Middle Grade Bizarro

It's very hard to find a good bizarro middle grade book. There are silly books, and wacky books, and nutsy books, and, or course, farty and poopy books, but good bizarro is rare. By "bizarro" I mean deadpan, tongue in cheek, low key, understated, unpredictable inside/out books. And that's what you get here.

And it's a singular and unapologetically odd book. The premise, though, is straightforward, which is the best way to set up a bizarro book. Davy and his Mom have moved to a new town to start a new life. A sadness has followed them. Davy is anxious about fitting in and just wants to be normal. That's all very familiar. But wait. It turns out no one and nothing in Topsea is normal, so Davy's quest to be "normal" is doomed before it starts. The underlying message of the book, which is rarely made explicit but which informs every element, is that when no one is normal then the whole idea of "normal" is meaningless. There are more important things than normalcy - like kindness, generosity, good humor, courage and loyalty.

Here's the best part. All of the usual conventions of middle grade books are subverted, ignored, or parodied, with a bit of a wink and a smile. There is no bully. No mean girls. All of the kids at Davy's school are friendly, open and interesting. (These kids all get substantial storylines and page time of their own, which is also unusual.) The teachers are kind and patient. Davy's Mom is smart, loving, competent and supportive. When we do come to an old chestnut, (say, bad cafeteria food), it is presented as so over the top it becomes fresh again. And that's especially so when everything else is even more over the top. Gravity is turned off once a year for routine gravity maintenance. Of course mermaids are real, but dogs are mythical. Topsea has five different seasons. And what's up with those menacing cats? And so the weirdness goes, sometimes as a big set piece, sometimes just as a single throwaway line.

The narrative structure is ideal for the nature of the book and for a young reader. The flow is broken up with news articles, bulletins, excerpts from books about Topsea, and so on, which makes the whole book comfortably bite size for the ambitious but still pretty new reader. The narrator doesn't indulge in any of the arch or coy or cutesy narrative tics that can be so annoying in similar books. This works because the weirdness has to be plausible and the jokes can't be obvious. Davy is confused but game, just like the reader will be, and Davy and the reader get to figure out together how everything works.

I have to add, even though I don't usually find comparisons to be helpful, that this book struck me as best described as a middle grade variation on "Welcome to Night Vale", either the book form or, even better, the podcast. They both have the same weird, deadpan, strange, but somehow upbeat and full of wonder sort of feel. That's the highest praise I can offer. This was a great find.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

This was simply one of the most charming books I've read in a while. At first it felt very absurd, but I realized something - it felt like how a kid might view the world.

It reminds me of stories my dad says I told as a kid, or stories my (7 year old) niece tells about her day or how some of the girls in her girl scout troop explain the world as they understand it.

It was also surprisingly touching, considering throughout Davy finds it hard to adjust to his new home, not just because it's so different, but because the little things remind him of his father which hurts.

Davy's classmatea are fun and varied - from Quincy who records every question he hears and doesn't care about the answers to Talise who doesn't understand why everyone isn't obsessed with the ocean. While Davy was the primary focus, we'd see Interludes with each classmate as they went about their (mostly) normal routines.

I'd definitely recommend this to any reader who enjoyed Pippi Longstocking, Wayside Stories, Heidi Schultz or lots of humor.

Just please sure to warn about the rock cats and rubber duckies okay?