Product Description

A bright, science-minded boy goes to the beach equipped to collect and examine flotsam--anything floating that has been washed ashore. Bottles, lost toys, small objects of every description are among his usual finds. But there's no way he could have prepared for one particular discovery: a barnacle-encrusted underwater camera, with its own secrets to share . . . and to keep.

In each of his amazing picture books, David Wiesner has revealed the magical possibilities of some ordinary thing or happening--a frog on a lily pad, a trip to the Empire State Building, a well-known nursery tale. This time, a day at the beach is the springboard into a wildly imaginative exploration of the mysteries of the deep, and of the qualities that enable us to witness these wonders and delight in them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3016 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 40 pages

From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Kindergarten-Grade 4–A wave deposits an old-fashioned contraption at the feet of an inquisitive young beachcomber. Its 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 books 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 Wiesners other works, Chris Van Allsburgs titles, or Barbara Lehmans The Red Book (Houghton, 2004) for a mind-bending journey of imagination.–Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
PreS-Gr. 2. As in his Caldecott Medal Book Tuesday (1991), Wiesner offers another exceptional, wordless picture book that finds wild magic in quiet, everyday settings. At the seaside, a boy holds a magnifying glass up to a flailing hermit crab; binoculars and a microscope lay nearby. The array of lenses signals the shifting viewpoints to come, and in the following panels, the boy discovers an old-fashioned camera, film intact. A trip to the photo store produces astonishing pictures: an octopus in an armchair holding story hour in a deep-sea parlor; tiny, green alien tourists peering at sea horses. There are portraits of children around the world and through the ages, each child holding another child's photo. After snapping his own image, the boy returns the camera to the sea, where it's carried on a journey to another child. Children may initially puzzle, along with the boy, over the mechanics of the camera and the connections between the photographed portraits. When closely observed, however, the masterful watercolors and ingeniously layered perspectives create a clear narrative, and viewers will eagerly fill in the story's wordless spaces with their own imagined story lines. Like Chris Van Allsburg's books and Wiesner's previous works, this visual wonder invites us to rethink how and what we see, out in the world and in our mind's eye. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Wiesner offers another exceptional, wordless picture book that finds wild magic in quiet, everyday settings." (Booklist, ALA, Starred Review )

"New details swim into focus with every rereading of this immensely satisfying excursion." (Publishers Weekly, Starred )

"A mind-bending journey of imagination." (School Library Journal Starred )

"The meticulous and rich detail of Wiesner's watercolors makes the fantasy involving and convincing." (Horn Book )

Customer Reviews

Wordless story that invites the imagination
This wordless story invites the imagination to run free. The illustrations are beautifully done and I was able to set forth onto an underwater adventure! If you are looking to inspire your child's mind, this is the book for you.Mommy's High Heel Shoes

Finding a Treasure
In Flotsam (Clarion Books, 2006), illustrator David Wiesner tells a story that spans the globe and takes in an entire century--all without using a single word. This Caldecott-winning tale, told entirely through water color illustrations, shows how an inquisitive boy makes a remarkable find one day at the beach. While studying a crab in the sand, the boy is startled by a large wave that washes up an unusual treasure--an old waterproof camera. Instead of discarding it as junk, the curious boy develops the film inside the camera and finds a series of unbelievable images. The final picture shows him that, by discovering the camera, he joins in a secret shared with children from various times and places.

Wiesner's colorful and imaginative images are a mix of the everyday and the fantastic, prompting readers to, like the story's hero, take a closer look at what they see. Wiesner's story will be well received by any child who has ever dreamed of finding treasure in unexpected places.

Pictures speak louder than words
Pictures speak louder than words in the Caldecott winner wordless picture book "Flotsam," by David Weisner (Clarion Books, 2006). The book begins with an inquisitive young boy at the beach, equipped with magnifying glass, microscope, and binoculars to examine his findings. The boy is excited to find an underwater camera, the developed pictures yielding interesting results: surreal marine life happenings such as an octopus at underwater story time and a picture of a child holding a picture of yet another child, and so on. The reader is taken on a cyclical journey through place and time with the pictures of the children, ultimately ending with the boy at the beach taking a picture of himself and sending it back out to sea for yet another child to enjoy. Readers will not even miss the absence of words; the striking, vivid, and storytelling artwork of the adventure will captivate readers of all ages for years to come.