Flotsam by David Wiesner
2007 Medal Winner
The Three Pigs by David Wiesner
2002 Caldecott Medal
Let's just start with the fact that David Wiesner has won THREE Caldecott medals and TWO Caldecott Honors. He's good! I haven't gotten my hands on the other medal and honor books he's written yet, but I look forward to doing exactly that!
FLOTSAM is a wordless picture book of a sophisticated nature. Many wordless picture books are designed for people too young to read. Not this one. Older children and adults will also enjoy Flotsam. The illustrations, depicting a boys exploration on the beach, are detailed and fine, and there are lots of them--- some pages have more than a dozen frames.
If you love exploring on the beach and finding little animals and trash and treasures, you will resonate with the boy in this book. He's taking a close examination of a crab when a wave knocks him over. When he sits up again, he sees an ancient underwater camera that the wave washed up. And here the adventure begins. I'm not giving any of the rest of it away. It's cool. It's magical. This book is worth chasing down.
One of the things I love about the book is the way the illustrations, and really the whole story, show the process of LOOKING. For example you see the hermit crab, huge, in sharp focus, looking startled. . . with the boys eye in the background. Then you see the boy stretched out on a blanket in the sand, a magnifying glass held up to his face (and making his eye enormous) and the hermit crab in his hand. If you are someone who loves this kind of LOOKING (and I do!) there is a lot of happiness seeing that process shown from various perspectives. You are pulled into the boys LOOKING and actually experience the story.
Highly recommended. All ages.
THE THREE PIGS is also totally clever and cool (though I'd have to say Flotsam would easily be my personal favorite.) This story begins with the usual "Once upon a time there were three pigs who went out into the world to seek their fortune. The first pig decided to build a house, and he built it out of straw."
I was thinking, "huh, I'm surprised that David Wiesner would want to do this story. . . " but then when the world huffed and puffed and blew the house in the little pig says "Hey He blew me right out the story!" and the pig actually sails OFF the page, and the wolf is supposed to be eating him up. . . but he's gone!
The rest of the book features pigs scrambling around doing their own thing IN BETWEEN the PAGES of the book. . . and then OTHER books! This is so clever it's hard to explain! Which would be a good reason to give this man a medal! Heck the pigs even fold a paper airplane out of one of the pages in the book and fly away on it for a few pages. Ingenious and fun. In both books, for different reasons, the sheer intelligence of this author-illustrator's artistry impress me!
Here is a you-tube video of the artist talking about his most recent book. Seems like a very interesting man who likes to challenge himself! Art and Max by David Wiesner - YouTube
And here's an interview with the artist talking about getting the news of winning the Caldecott for the Flotsam and talking about his creating process: David Wiesner interview - YouTube
Love, Louise
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