FLOTSAM
By David Wiesner 2007 Caldecott Medal winner
Published by Clarion Books (2006)ISBN: 9780618194575
Audience: K-G4
Tale
While beachcombing, a boy finds an old picture camera and discover that a roll of film is still inside it. Intrigued to see what kind of pictures the roll holds, he takes the camera to a one hour photo store to be developed. To his surprise, the pictures are a mix of fantasy and nature from two worlds that seem to overcome their limitations and overlap. He also finds out that he is not the first kid to have the pictures developed; is he going to be the last one?
Thoughts
Is there anything more exciting that finding shells, coins, and other treasures on the seashore? Imagine finding a special treasure that holds fantastic images buried within it. Caldecott Medal winner David Wiesner does a wonderful job telling a tale without any words that will intrigue readers of all ages. The pictures are great and they deliver the story perfectly. The beautiful colors, the exceptional details on facial expressions, the extraordinary creativity, the clear sequence of events, and the inclusion of multicultural elements, all make this a remarkable work.
About the author
Author and illustrator, Wiesner won many awards for his picture book creations. Some of them have been translated into many languages.
To read more about his work, his biography, and the awards received, visit http://www.hmhbooks.com/wiesner/
Activities
3rd grade and up: Ask students to write commentary for the illustrations.
All grades: Ask students to tell what is going to happen next in the story.
All grades: Ask students to create their own wordless story through illustrations.
Review
Kirkus Reviews 2006 August #1
"From arguably the most inventive and cerebral visual storyteller in children's literature, comes a wordless invitation to drift with the tide, with the story, with your eyes, with your imagination. A boy at the beach picks up a barnacle-encrusted underwater camera. He develops the film, which produces, first, pictures of a surreal undersea world filled with extraordinary details (i.e., giant starfish bestride the sea carrying mountainous islands on their backs), and then a portrait of a girl holding a picture of a boy holding a picture of another boy . . . and so on . . . and on. Finally, the boy needs a microscope to reveal portraits of children going back in time to a sepia portrait of a turn-of-the-century lad in knickers. The boy adds his own self-portrait to the others, casts the camera back into the waves, and it is carried by a sea creature back to its fantastic depths to be returned as flotsam for another child to find. In Wiesner's much-honored style, the paintings are cinematic, coolly restrained and deliberate, beguiling in their sibylline images and limned with symbolic allusions. An invitation not to be resisted. (Picture book. 6-11) Copyright Kirkus 2006 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved."
Review
Kirkus Reviews 2006 August #1
"From arguably the most inventive and cerebral visual storyteller in children's literature, comes a wordless invitation to drift with the tide, with the story, with your eyes, with your imagination. A boy at the beach picks up a barnacle-encrusted underwater camera. He develops the film, which produces, first, pictures of a surreal undersea world filled with extraordinary details (i.e., giant starfish bestride the sea carrying mountainous islands on their backs), and then a portrait of a girl holding a picture of a boy holding a picture of another boy . . . and so on . . . and on. Finally, the boy needs a microscope to reveal portraits of children going back in time to a sepia portrait of a turn-of-the-century lad in knickers. The boy adds his own self-portrait to the others, casts the camera back into the waves, and it is carried by a sea creature back to its fantastic depths to be returned as flotsam for another child to find. In Wiesner's much-honored style, the paintings are cinematic, coolly restrained and deliberate, beguiling in their sibylline images and limned with symbolic allusions. An invitation not to be resisted. (Picture book. 6-11) Copyright Kirkus 2006 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved."
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