Module 3, Book 2: Flotsam

Flotsam

by David Wiesner

Wiesner, D. (2006). Flotsam. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Is a picture worth a thousand words?

Summary:

This wordless picture book tells a multilayered story of a boy who happens upon a camera on the beach.  Out of curiosity, he develops the film contained within.  The rest of the story is a visual masterpiece of impressive art that depicts the rich history of the roll of film, which eventually includes the young boy.   

Impressions:

This book gets better and better with each reading and is best enjoyed with a friend.  The artwork is impressive, unique, odd, fantastical, and realistic all at once.  The detail embedded in each panel pulls you in.  The perspectives and various points of view challenges the reader visually.  Readers of all ages can appreciate the painstaking work that must have been invested in this work and the level of participation the author expects from the audience.  

Reviews:

From School Library Journal:

K-Gr 4-- A wave deposits an old-fashioned contraption at the feet of an inquisitive young beachcomber. It's a "Melville underwater camera," and the excited boy quickly develops the film he finds inside. The photos are amazing: a windup fish, with intricate gears and screwed-on panels, appears in a school with its living counterparts; a fully inflated puffer, outfitted as a hot-air balloon, sails above the water; miniature green aliens kowtow to dour-faced sea horses; and more. The last print depicts a girl, holding a photo of a boy, and so on. As the images become smaller, the protagonist views them through his magnifying glass and then his microscope. The chain of children continues back through time, ending with a sepia image of a turn-of-the-20th-century boy waving from a beach. After photographing himself holding the print, the youngster tosses the camera back into the ocean, where it makes its way to its next recipient. This wordless book's vivid watercolor paintings have a crisp realism that anchors the elements of fantasy. Shifting perspectives, from close-ups to landscape views, and a layout incorporating broad spreads and boxed sequences, add drama and motion to the storytelling and echo the photographic theme. Filled with inventive details and delightful twists, each snapshot is a tale waiting to be told. Pair this visual adventure with Wiesner's other works, Chris Van Allsburg's titles, or Barbara Lehman's The Red Book (Houghton, 2004) for a mind-bending journey of imagination.

Citation: Fleishhacker, J. (2006). Flotsam. School Library Journal, 52(9), 186-187. 

From Kirkus 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)

Citation: Kirkus Reviews. (2006). Flotsam. Kirkus Reviews, 74(15), 798-799. 

Library Activity:

This book may be used to instill the value of rereading and an appreciation for detail.  After a once over, ask students to share their first impressions of Flotsam.  Then, challenge them to slowly reread the book with a partner two more times, noting new discoveries with each examination.  Meet as a group again a share thoughts, insights, and aha moments.  Connect this experience with reading in general and how one absorbs beautiful art and language.