Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006
Flotsam by David Wiesner
Cameras supposedly don't lie, yet in this lovely, wordless tale the photos from an underwater camera that a boy finds washed up on a beach are hard to believe — fantastical creatures, underwater realms, seashell cities. What to do with such a magical device? Another of the camera's shots gives the clue: a self-portrait of a child holding a self-portrait of a child, and so on, back through the generations. The boy returns the camera to the ocean, to become a bit of fabulous flotsam on the imagination of another youth on another shore.