Flotsam: 1

Product Information

Take the initial sequence of images where the boy is swamped by the wave and finds the camera, and the sequence at the end, where the boy is again splashed by the wave (which reclaims his pictures). Talk about the images with your class. How would it feel to be experiencing these events? I would recommend this book for just about any age group. The purpose for using it will vary, but it fosters our creative side, whether you are 5 or 15. Older students could use it for a writing activity in which they have to create words to go with each image. How many different creatures and plants can you identify in the illustrations? Can you write a report about one (or more) of them? Postcards, setting descriptions, non- chronological reports, message in a bottle letters Main Outcome: Flotsam” is a 2007 Caldecott Award winning book by David Wiesner, author of the popular books, “Tuesday” and “The Three Pigs.” In this story, a young boy discovers a mysterious camera from the sea that eventually shows him another world under the sea. “Flotsam” is surely one classic that cannot be beat.

This book is very thought-provoking. The illustrations are beautiful and the story is easy to follow. This is one of my favorites this year.

International

Create your own incredible pictures that show images that might have been taken by the underwater camera. Look at the different items of scientific equipment that the family brought to the beach with them. What are they? How are they used? This book is gorgeous, with amazing illustrations and a wonderful plot. It has the added bonus of being a bit eerie. It reminded me of Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg in a way. Sometimes I think wordless children's books are extra amazing. Highly recommended.

In time, the young Wiesner began exploring the history of art, delving into the Renaissance at first — Michelangelo, Dürer, and da Vinci — then moving on to such surrealists as Magritte, de Chirico, and Dalí. As he got older, he would sit, inspired by these masters, at the oak drafting table his father had found for him and would construct new worlds on paper and create wordless comic books, such as Slop the Wonder Pig, and silent movies, like his kung fu vampire film The Saga of Butchula. The underwater camera has a film inside. Can you find out how these cameras work? How are they different from digital cameras? The illustrations are drawn in the horizontal format - they are wider than they are tall - and in beautiful watercolors. The story is delightful and universal, full of wonderful detail and whimsical invention: how many of us have often dreamed of finding something which would be special and unique just by chance, to feel the joy of discovery? The juxtaposition of imagination and reality is truly delightful, and so is the uplifting mood of the book and it's message -the perserverance of wonder in an never ending chain. Encourage speculation about what the pictures might show, then get the film developed (maybe a local shop will allow your class to see the process?).

At the Rhode Island School of Design, Wiesner was able to commit himself to the full-time study of art and to explore further his passion for wordless storytelling. There he met two people who would figure prominently in his life: Tom Sgouros, to whom Tuesday is dedicated, and David Macaulay, to whom The Three Pigs is dedicated. These two men not only taught Wiesner the fundamentals of drawing and painting but also fostered his imaginative spirit and helped him comprehend the world around him. Sgouros's and Macaulay's artistic influences were vital to Wiesner's development into the acclaimed picture-book author he is today.