Stories from Magic Beach by Alison Lester and Robert Connolly with eleven world-class animators

Title: Stories from Magic Beach

Author: Alison Lester and Robert Connolly with eleven world-class animators

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 1^st April 2025

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 96

Price: $29.99

Synopsis: Inspired by Alison Lester’s much-loved classic, this is the book of the film by Paper Planes creator Robert Connolly, featuring the work of eleven world-class animators plus live action stills, with illustrations and verses from the original book.

Ten children find themselves on a Magic Beach of their imagination. They explore caves, build giant sandcastles, poke around rock pools and converse with sea animals. They dive with horses in the waves and play with magical underwater creatures. Sandcastles are built and destroyed in terrible wars. Pirates smuggle treasure into caves. And Dreamtime serpents fly through the sky and shed their scales.

The dreams of these children are limitless and the magic of the beach will be in their hearts forever.

Alison Lester’s Magic Beach has been in print for over 35 years and is now brought to life by eleven world-class animators: Emma Kelly, Susan Danta, Lee Whitmore, Anthony Lucas, Kathy Sarpi, Eddie White, Simon Rippingale, Pierce Davison, Marieka Walsh, Susie Shapones and Jake Duczynski.

Featuring an incredible range of artwork in tribute to an enduring Australian classic, Stories from Magic Beach is a perfect keepsake.

An earlier version of this review appeared in Good Reading Magazine in May 2025.  

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For over thirty-five years, readers of several generations have been charmed by Alison Lester’s classic picture book Magic Beach. It is one of the most loved picture books in Australia, and it has been brought to life recently on film. Alison Lester, Robert Connelley and eleven fantastic animators to create a movie of the book. In the original story, ten children are on a beach filled with magic and imagination, where they explore caves and rockpools. Build sandcastles and talk to sea animals. There are pirates and wars, and Dreamtime serpent. Their imagination has no bounds, their dreams are limitless. And now, this has been captured on film.

Each section of animation opens with a verse from the original book, followed by animation illustrations that tell a story, but where readers can use them to make up their own story, or adapt it to their story. They tell their own story at times, but give readers the space to fill in the gaps, create the voices and inject their own experiences and imagination into what they see on the page, making this a truly magical book. Storytelling dances off the page in this book, and it invites people to take part in the oral tradition of storytelling and to embrace their creative and imaginative side – an activity that can be done without screens.

It’s the kind of book that can be read with the film, after the film or before, to give readers an idea of what to expect. It could even be read alongside the original, working out where each element of the first book fits in with the story, or how the film reflects the book and what it means to everyone. What magic it creates in each reader’s life as well, because every book will have a different meaning for everyone, and this book is no different. It has a power to reflect our world back at us and how we relate to it through the stills of each animation, informed by the animator’s experiences and understandings of their world as well.

This book shows that there is power in imagination and what it means in our lives, and how we respond to it. It is about bringing our stories to life, and who we tell these stories to. The people we choose to share them with. It is a good reminder of how people connect with stories and books, and picture books in different ways. Everyone finds a different meaning in books. A different way of seeing themselves through the books they read. This animation and collection of animations has given Magic Beach a new life, and reminds us how precious making memories is in the small moments of life.