I Love You Long Beach Island

In this delightful and heartfelt tribute to her home island, the author of the ''How To Live'' books focuses on Long Beach Island, N.J, with an original kind of illustrated prose-poem/love song. In its pages, the award-winning writer celebrates enduring simple truths and feelings about this eighteen-mile long stretch of sand ''...because I think it is important to say what you love in this life... especially if what you love is vulnerable. And Long Beach Island is that. It's just a beautiful accident of tide and currents, a moment of grace amid storm.''

This illustrated gift book was spontaneously born of a poem she painted onto a sign in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. It resonated deeply with Long Beach Islanders. Composed as a love letter to the Island, it begins... ''My old friend, I love your curling waves and stretching sands, your salt-drenched air. I love your sunny days, your gray days too -- all your many moods... I love how you're an endless summer. I love the arc of your bridge, the first glimpse of refuge.... I love your sunsets and your surfers, the children on your beach, the castles that they build. I love your innocence....''

Sandy's words captured a shared love for Long Beach Island, its people, its familiar rituals -- and what was almost lost in the storm.