Holling Clancy Holling has written many books in the
Paddle-To-The-Sea tradition; I don't even know which one came first.
There's one about a tree called Tree in the Trail, and there's Pagoo, the story of a hermit crab. Not to mentio n Seabird and. . . damn, there's a turtle one, too.
The books are characterized by a particular two-page layout. One page is text, rimmed by small illustrations (which he also does) and captions, the other is one large illustration directly relevant to the text.
Because of the sneakily educational nature of the books, and their short, one-page chapters, they make ideal bedtime stories for kids, say, 6-11 or 12. Shoot, I'm 21 and I enjoy 'em.
I'm not sure if they're out of print or what, but most of them shouldn't be hard to find.