Flotsam

Flotsam by David Wiesner

2007 Caldecott Medal Winner

Writing about Flotsam immediately after an Elephant & Piggie book is an interesting contrast  -- one is moved forward by very sparse pictures and words that seem to shout out the story, while another has no words, but lush paintings that clearly convey the story.

First, I love the paintings.  They are absolutely beautiful and full of rich details.  One could stare at each frame for quite some time, taking in everything that the artist/author has included.


In the first 2 page spread, we "meet" a boy who is engrossed in his own world.  The pictures show that he loves to collect & examine things on the beach, as evidenced by the buckets full of shells, seaweed, driftwood and starfish, the old box full of collected sea creatures and the magnifying glass & microscope.  One has to be pretty dedicated to bring a microscope to the beach!  We know all of this about him without any words of description.

He finds the camera & you know it is old for several reasons -- adults recognize it as an old style and know that it is old from its use of film.  Kids can see that it is old from the mollusks/barnacles that have grown on it -- obviously been in the sea for sometime.

I love the series of frames at the photo shop -- the contrast of the teenage clerk that could clearly care less about his film with the 6 frames in which the boy is bored, anxiously awaiting his film to be developed.  Did the author/artist purposefully use 6 frames to mark the 60 minutes (broken down into 10 minute increments) that the boy had to wait to get back his film?

After he gets the film developed, the book delves into a mysterious fantasy world. The "photos" of the underwater creatures who have very different lives that what we believe -- Octopi lounging in comfortable living rooms, entire cities made of shells with tiny green "Martian"-like creature inhabitants.  And, who is the viewer to suppose took those photos?  Is this camera magic, taking photos underwater of its own accord?  And, most exciting, the photos of the children who have discovered this camera, from around the world, from all times in the past 100 years.

The boy has an association with those children -- each of them have had the same magical, mysterious experience with the camera.  There are no adults involved, this is purely a kid thing  -- perhaps only kids believe?  Does it only work for kids?  And, finally,  the circle is closed by him tossing the camera back into the ocean, to be found by a girl on a tropical island. 

Without the exquisite details on the paintings, this book could not work.  It is through those details that we understand the story and the tone that is being conveyed.  For instance, the pictures of the beach are painted in muted colors -- light blues and beiges.  We are to understand that this is a calm place.  The pictures of the underwater world, in contrast, are vividly colored, showing excitement and mystery.  We know that the discovery of this underwater world is very important.  However, the paintings are by no means garish.  As Tunnell, Jacobs, Young and Bryan point out in their work Children's Literature, Briefly, "Most artistic devices are like cosmetics; they must not be too noticeable or they are not doing their job." (p.38)

The author also uses the pictures to show passage of time, as in the scene with the one hour photo shop as well as in the photos of the children who have previously found the camera -- they go from sepia tones to black and white to the washed out color of the 1950s to the vivid color of recent film.

I think that very young children may enjoy the pictures in this book and may understand some of it, but that it really is a better book for a little older children (1st grade & up), to be read with an adult.  By sharing the book with an adult, children will see the more subtle details and can have some of the more abstract or historical ideas explained.