Flotsam

Title: Flotsam
Author: David Wiesner
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2006
Reading Level: Any age
Pages: 36
Genre: Wordless Picture Book







Summary:

There was a little boy who went to the beach with his family. He had microscopes and magnifying glasses and containers to explore. When he goes to look at a crab a huge wave crashes into him. After he recovers he sees a camera sitting on the beach. He grabs it and runs to his parents. They head to the lifeguard, but he's never seen it before, so they take it back and take out the film. The boy goes to the 1-Hour-Photo Shop and waits and waits for the film to be processed. When it's finally done he goes back to the beach and looks at them. They are some crazy picture! Octupi sitting on furniture that came from a truck that suck to the bottom of the ocean, little aliens taking pictures of sea horses, giant starfish and more. However, the last picture gets his attention the most. It's a little holding a photo of another child who's holding a picture of another child and it goes on and on. The boy grabs his magnifying glass and looks at the picture more closely. He notices that the picture goes back to olden times with black and white photos. His parents come to get him, and while they are packing up he decides to take a picture of himself holding the photo. He takes it, and throws the camera back into the ocean. Different sea creatures grab on to it and take it far away where it washes up on shore and a little girl picks it up. This book is also a wordless picture book. The pictures are big and show great detail. You can see the boys excitment when he finds somethings and his awe when he looks ate the photo after photo after photo inside of one photo. The pictrues of the sea life are very detailed. You can see every spike on the sea horse and the suction cups on the squids. It shows a life under sea that nobody has ever seen before, and the last page shows that the pictures wil continue to be taken.

My Reaction:

I found this book fascinating. I kept wanting to look closer at the photos to see what secrets were hiddden within. It was fun that the sea creatures in the pictures were personified, and I could look through it forever!

Potential Problems:

I didn't recognize any potential prroblems in this story.

Recommendations:

I would recommend this book most definitely! It is fun for kids to see the pictures and make up there own story. It would be fun to have them read it when they were little and then see what they think when they read it again. It's always different! You notice different things and you learn more!