Flotsam

The book starts out with a picture of a boy playing in the sand and water on a beach with a shovel. This picture is even before the title page! As you turn a few pages, you will see the same little boy’s eye looking at a hermit crab through a magnifying glass. This wordless book goes on to illustrate this little boy’s day at the beach. He was having a typical day when he found an underwater camera that was washed ashore. The boy got the filmed developed to see pictures of the underwater sea but with a twist. The first picture was of red fish, but one was a wind-up/robot fish. Another was of sea turtles with shells on their back that were home to little green aliens. But then the pictures took a new twist. The pictures turned to pictures of other boys and girls who had found the camera and took pictures of themselves holding the photos. As he looked at the pictures more closely, each picture was made up children from a long time ago on the beach. It even included the boy who must have lost his underwater camera. The little boy takes a picture of himself with the camera and throws it back to sea. The audience gets to see the journey the camera takes until it gently floats onto another beach where a little child is sitting.

I really liked this wordless book. The pictures and the illustrations were beyond beautiful and interesting. Even the front cover makes the reader have to look at twice. In the middle of the eye of the fish on the cover of the book, you can see the underwater camera. At first glance, it looks like just the eye of the fish but if you look at it closely, it is the camera taking a picture of the eye of the fish. As a future teacher, I like how there is a picture before the title page. It is a great cue for students to be able to stop and think about what is going to happen in this book. I really enjoyed how the pictures were not traditionally pictures of fish, turtles, octopuses, and seahorses. There is a twist on all of the pictures and they all include so much detail. But what I really appreciated from the book was the pictures of the other children that had found the underwater camera and taken pictures. It showed children of all backgrounds and from all places. The book was very specific on the diversity of the children who had found the camera to show how far the camera had traveled. It showed what children from other places looked like and what kind of clothes they wore.  My most favorite part was how the pictures were made up of other pictures of children on the beach a long, long time ago. We can tell that because the pictures turned from color to black and white. Overall, this book was very creative. The images and illustrations would be great for students to have to study and explain what is going on. It also could provide them with a writing topic. Lastly, I would love to challenge my own students to all create a picture like the one of the red fish with the wind-up/robot fish. It will get their imaginations going and give them an opportunity to be creative. 

Flotsam

Author: David Wiesner

Year Published: 2006