TGIF, my friends!
At last the weekend is upon us. Hope you have something fun planned. I am hoping to be able to check off a couple more activities from my autumn bucket list by Sunday evening.
We are three weeks into this “31 Days of Children’s Books”. Twenty-one days down, ten to go. This is a LOOONG month! Never fear, I haven’t begun to run out of “material” for this series. But wish I could come up with an exciting new way to share the books with you. Thinking I might, might try a video but don’t hold me to that. And still hopeful that I can figure out a way to share one of my former TV shows with you.
Continuing with Caldecott Award winners today. Have a imaginative wordless picture book for you. The 2007 winner Flotsam by David Wiesner.
This was the third Caldecott Medal winning book for author/illustrator David Wiesner. His book Tuesday was the 1992 winner, and Wiesner’s Three Little Pigs won in 2002.
Through watercolor and gouache paintings, Wiesner imparts the story of a young, aspiring-oceanographer’s day at the beach.
What begins as a study of the ocean critters that wash up on the beach, soon takes an unexpected turn when a vintage camera floats to shore.
So very old and vintage is this “Melville Underwater Camera”, that it requires rolls of film.
Raise your hand if you have ever used a camera that required a roll of film. Me, too.
For those whose hands are down, do you know what to do with a roll of film? You take it to be developed.
While you wait for the pictures to be developed…an eternity, one hour…you buy more film, of course. I would guess that if you have just discovered this roll of film laying around or perhaps in a camera that floated up out of the ocean, you are going to be very interested to see the pictures.
Once you get your hands on them, you study the developed photographs, very carefully.
You might wonder, hmm, how was that photo even taken? Me, too. And then there’s this one.
Another photo that begs to be inspected more closely.
One that reveals even more under magnification.
And right about here would be a good place to ask the children you are sharing the book with what they predict has happened. Who are these children in the illustrations and what are each of them holding? You might ask what your little one would want to do next.
Maybe this?
Then what? This?
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. What would happen now? The end? No, not yet.
In the wondrous world of this wordless picture book, anything is possible.
Ah-ha! Now we know how the underwater seascapes came to be. But is this where the book ends?
I’ll never tell. You’ll have to get a copy of Flotsam to see for yourself. Or maybe ask your little one to finish the story.
Purchase David Wiesner’s beautiful books on Amazon, here. Including his other Caldecott Award winners,
and his three Caldecott Honor books,
Meet David Wiesner on his webpage and on his blog.
And I leave you with this, a video taste of this delicious book, Flotsam. Enjoy!
Hugs and kisses,
What beautiful illustrations! You are the children’s book aficionado!