I might be a lover of language, but there is truth to the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. A good picture--a really good picture--is rich with possibility. Rather than just telling a story, it can invite the viewer to create his or her own. Done right, this can make for the most magical of children's books.
Done right.
Because not everyone does, and as a general rule, for books I like to stick to words. After all, how do you read a picture book to your kids? How do you do special voices for all the villains and keep to just the right rhythm and pace to keep them on the edge of their seats?
Well, again, if a picture book is done just right, then you don't have to worry about those things, because the book will do it for you. And almost every time I will pick a book of words over a picture book when reading to my kids, but there are picture books that evoke so much wonder with their images that this usual rule goes out the window; I can happily put the book in front of my kids, ask them what is happening, and let their imaginations do the rest.
David Wiesner's Flotsam is definitely one of those books.
The story begins with a boy exploring the beach equipped with bucket, shovel, and magnifying glass. But examination of a crab is interrupted when an antique, barnacle-encrusted camera is washed ashore. He opens the camera and discovers film inside (remember film? be prepared to explain it to your children. Don't forget to say that you used to have to walk uphill both ways to the drugstore to get pictures developed and your camera only held a couple dozen at a time and phones were things connected to walls).
He rushes to a drugstore to get the film developed, and when he does--
The photographs are fantastic and fantastical. Pictures of turtles carrying tiny cities on their backs deep beneath the waves, of fish sailing the skies in hot air balloons, of aliens meeting with seahorses and starfish that carry islands on their backs. You could write a book--an entire book, and a wonderful book, and a magical book--about any of these pictures.
The boy stares at the photographs in wonder, then sees the last one--a selfie of a girl holding in her hand a selfie of a boy who holds in his hand a selfie of another child. It is the long lineage of all of the children who have found the camera in the past. And so the boy takes his own selfie to add himself to the lineage, and then lets the waves reclaim the camera, which goes deep, deep, deep back to the magical world beneath the sea.
If your kids are like mine they will love this book, stopping at each photo to discuss the strange world it reveals, wanting to know what type of people would live in a city on a turtle's back or why tiny aliens wearing bubble helmets would ride on fish. Your kids might need to pause for a minute to have an adventure with the aliens and help fix their spaceship before you can turn to the next page. Don't worry; that's fine. That's what this book is for. And if you are anything like me you will be pausing on each page as well, letting your mind take off on its own adventure.
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