Flotsam

By: David Wiesner (2006)

This book tells the story of a boy that finds a camera that washes ashore on the beach where he is playing. He gets the film developed and finds a picture of a girl holding a picture of another child holding a picture, and on back through what appears to be many generations. The boy decides to carry on this tradition by taking a picture of himself holding the original picture of the girl and he then throws the camera back into the ocean so that it can be found by another person.

I really liked this book and I thought it was amazing how such an interesting story could be told without any words. The drawings were very descriptive and you could almost tell what the characters were thinking based on their facial expressions. It was a neat idea that this camera had been passed down through many generations and I think it would be an interesting concept for students to think about.

As a teacher, I think that wordless books can be a very valuable type of literature to introduce your students to. I think that students of all ages would enjoy this book because there are many different activities that they could do with this book, challenging children at all ability levels. Because this book doesn't have words, I would like to have students create their own dialogue that matches the pages of this story. I think that this type of activity requires students to really analyze the pictures and think about what they are telling them. Having students write their own story will give them an opportunity to exercise their own creativity, while also practicing things like story telling and grammar rules.