Flotsam

Flotsam	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Written and Illustrated by David Wiesner	2006
Fiction	40 pages
Reading Level age 5-8	Caldecott Award

Summary

This is another wordless picture book. The story is of a boy on a visit to the beach. He is with his parents. He wanders the beach looking for shells and at the crabs and creatures that crawl up the sand. He was examining a crab when a big wave came and knocked him off his feet. He looks out and finds a camera washed up onshore. He shows his parents then the lifeguard before running to the camera store to develop the film. He sat on the towel and looked at all the pictures. There were pictures of mechanical fish, aliens touring mermaid towns. The last picture makes him stop and stare harder. There was a girl holding a picture. The picture was of a boy holding another picture. He takes up his microscope, zooming in past 11 other children all clutching a picture. Finally the last was of a boy waving at the camera wearing clothes from past centuries. His parents pack up and start getting ready to go. The boy looks at the picture of all the children and sets up his camera on his green pail. He lines up with the camera holding the picture, and reaches for the button with his long handled spade. Just as he is snapping the picture, a wave washes over him. His picture is the most unique, with all the pictures in the air with the water and the children picture covering part of his face. He looks out to the pictures that were now floating away. He throws the camera into the ocean, waving and wishing it luck for the journey. It floats past sea horses, penguins, whales, dolphins and sea cucumbers before washing upon shore near a girl. She reaches toward it.

Response

I loved this book. I have many fond memories of going to the beach. I loved digging through the sand and finding abandoned shells and searching for hidden treasures. I loved having sand in between my toes and the salty brine of the water. I think the plot of all the children taking pictures are like the idea of throwing bottles with messages in them, waiting for someone to write back.

Possible Problems

I don’t think there are any problems with this book.

Recommendations

I would recommend this to any age. It would be a good book for those who have hard time keeping with the plot and dialogue. Parents could make up the gist of the plot to younger children, or have the children say the story the pictures tell.