Sandy Hook Bay on a summer morning, made of felt and wool: a tall channel marker and a cluster of dock pilings in the blue water, a wooded ridge across the bay carrying the Twin Lights, a sandy beach curving along the shore, and a grassy dune of beach plum at the edge.

Coco meets the animals of Sandy Hook Bay, one song at a time.

Watch

Two or three minutes each, made to be sung along with. New songs on the Above the Hook channel.

Coco and her eight friends

Every friend is a real animal that lives on Sandy Hook, named for a real piece of Highlands history. The personalities are made up. The facts are not.

The books

Picture books for ages 4 to 8, 8.5 inches square, full-bleed illustrations. Written and made in Highlands, New Jersey.

Shop

Character shirts, totes and prints from the bay, all in one place.

Coco plush is coming

We are making her. If you want to know when she is ready, leave a grown-up's email and we will write once.

We keep the email and nothing else. No child's name, no age, nothing about your child at all.

For parents and teachers

These songs and books are about a real place. A child who watches them can walk out to Sandy Hook and find Ollie's channel marker, Hartshorne's beach, and the rocks where Trudy sleeps.

Ages 2 to 6 for the songs. Ages 4 to 8 for the books, read aloud for the younger end and on their own by seven.
What they learn: counting, patience, sharing, taking a breath when it gets to be too much, the four seasons on the bay, and eight local animals.
What is real and what is storybook is spelled out in the back of every book, and the friends hold the same line when you talk to them.
The chat is closed to the books' own facts. No accounts, no saved conversations, nothing collected from a child. Coco does not talk at all.
Classroom sets, school visits and PTO events for Monmouth County.

To learn more or to help, look up the Sandy Hook Foundation, Save Coastal Wildlife's horseshoe crab monitoring, and the Monmouth County Audubon Society.