Book Summary:
Without words, Wiesner shows the story of a boy hanging out on the beach and analyzing crabs and sea life. Then, after a wave crashes over him, he finds an antique underwater camera, a piece of flotsom. The boy asks a lifeguard if it belongs to anyone, finds a roll of film, takes the film to be developed, buys another roll, and finally sees the magical photographs of mechanical fish, octopus living rooms, colonies of sea creatures living on turtles, and other fantastic seascapes. When he gets to the beginning of the photos, he sees a girl on a beach holding a photo of a boy on a beach holding a photo and so on. There are at least ten children who have photographed themselves before returning the camera to the sea as the boy eventually does as well. After he throws the camera back into the sea, squid, seahorses, and fish help it along to a world of merpeople. Eventually we see the camera as it is floating ashore to another child on a beach.
APA Reference:
Wiesner, D. (2006). Flotsam. New York, NY: Clarion Books.
My Impressions:
Photography is a passion of mine and I love most anything ocean related, so this book was instant love for me. Wiesner’s illustrations are amazingly detailed, and the colors used reflect all the beautiful colors of the ocean. I love how close up Wiesner gets to his subjects; the illustrations are framed similar to the way photographers shoot, thus mimicking the story.
As far as reading a wordless story to others, it may be difficult because everyone will have a slightly different take on how it should be told. The story is set up meticulously from the time the boy finds the camera to him looking at the developed photographs, but the stories behind each photograph could vary for every person who reads the book. I also think it would be interesting to see how many children understand how film works, especially 120 film. Even many older children haven’t seen much film in their lifetime, so even though the book is quite recent, some kids may not understand.
Professional Reviews:
“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)”
Flotsam [Review of the book Flotsam by D. Wiesner]. (2006). Kirkus Reviews, 74(15), 798-799.Retrieved from
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
“With its careful array of beachcombed items, the title page spread of Wiesner's latest picture book makes it look like one of those Eyewitness books, but the following wordless story is far stranger than fact. In clue-and fancy-strewn full-page paintings and panels, a boy at the beach closely examines items and animals washed in from the sea; when a wave deposits an old camera on the shore, his viewing takes a radical shift. He gets the camera's film developed at a nearby shop, allowing Wiesner's bountiful imagination great play in the series of photos the boy then examines: a robot fish, an octopus reading aloud to its offspring, giant starfish with islands on their backs. And: a seaside photo of a girl holding a seaside photo of a boy, holding a seaside photo of another child, ad infinitum. The inquisitive boy's ready magnifying glass and microscope allow him to see further and further into the photo, and further back in time, as revealed by the increasingly old-fashioned clothes worn by the children pictured. What to do but add himself to the sequence? The meticulous and rich detail of Wiesner's watercolors makes the fantasy involving and convincing; children who enjoyed scoping out Banyai's Zoom books and Lehman's The Red Book will keep a keen eye on this book about a picture of a picture of a picture of a....”
Sutton, R. (2006). [Review of the book Flotsam by D. Wiesner]. Horn Book Magazine, 82(5), 571-572.Retrieved from
http://www.hbook.com
Library Uses:
Flotsam could be used in many ways in a library setting. The book could be used as part of a display on ocean life, Caldecott winners, or of wordless books. It could also be used to show children how pictures can drive a story by using it in an interactive read aloud where kids give ideas to what is happening on some of the pages. Having children draw their own underwater scene after reading the book to them would be a great activity as well.
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