Flotsam

Title: Flotsam
Illustrator: David Wiesner
Genre: Modern Fantasy

Summary:
This book is actually one of my favorite books that I have chosen to write about on this blog. Flotsam is a picture book that has absolutely no text. The pictures tell a story of a little boy who is at the beach with his family. The little boy is using his day at the beach to look for treasures in the sand. The boy is watching a crab when a wave washes something onto the shore. The boy inches towards the water line to get a closer look at the object. The object turns out to be an old camera. The bot shows his new discovery to his parents and together they discover that the camera has film in it. The little bot takes the film to a nearby store to get it developed. The boys mind is blown when he sees the pictures that were taken with the camera. The photos contain images images of a world that should only exist in fairy tales. There are pictures of mechanical fish, an octopus reading a book, an underwater town, and even starfish that make whales look like ants. The last picture however is the one that interests the little boy the most. It is a picture of a little girl holding a picture of another picture. The little boy uses a magnifying glass to look closer at the picture and he is amazed by what he finds. In the picture he sees that the camera has been in the possession of countless children before him. He then knows what he is supposed to do with the camera. He decides to take a picture of himself holding the picture of the little girl. He then throws the camera back out to sea, where it can be found by another child who is searching for treasure on a beach.

Make the Connection:
This book is a great story for every age group. It is obviously a great book for lower grades because it does not have any text. However I would argue that there is defiantly a place for Flotsam in the upper grades. This book teaches students how big of a role pictures play in the telling of a story. A fun lesson for older students could be having them write their own story based on the pictures in Flotsam.