Three by the Sea

Not to be confused with "Three By The Sea" by Mini Grey, which appears to be significantly more interesting. It kind of meanders and doesn't go anywhere.

There are three kids on the beach and they just ate, so they can't go swimming, and they don't want to take a nap, so the girl says, "Hey, I'm going to read you a story from my reader." And it's like the most boring story ever (thankfully it only takes up two pages of the book) and even the two boys are bored by it. One of the boys says, "I could tell a better story than that," and proceeds to tell a story about a rat going for a walk who goes to a pet shop and buys a cat because he wants a friend. Everyone keeps asking him if he really wants to do what he's doing. The cat says he's hungry, then the rat asks what his favorite dish is, and the cat says, "Are you sure you want to know?" and the rat says, "Yes," and the cat says, "Let's go somewhere where we can be alone." So they go to the beach, and then it keeps building suspense until the cat says he likes cheese and now they're both friends and the story ends. Then the other boy says, "That wasn't scary enough. I'm going to tell you a scary story." So he tells one about a monster who is sneaking up on the beach where the rat, cat, and all three children are, and it scares the two other kids, who then deny that they were scared, and then the kids go swimming. The end.

There's no point. There's very little plot. It's kind of boring. It seems to be intentional that the stories within the main story are badly written, but since the main story is just a bare framework, you end up with a series of badly-written stories. It's not very interesting to me. I don't have too much to say about it. It's not terrible; it's just annoying.