Flotsam by David Wiesner

On the beach, Tom and his father are enjoying themselves. The boy built a sand castle. The boy caught a crab and he examined it with the magnifying glass. The crab fled and Tom chased it. A big wave came his way. After the wave was gone, Tom is very sad because crab escaped. But his attention is drawn to a different object. Tom is curious. He picks it up and examines the object. He is observant and surprised. He thinks,” Oh, this is an underwater camera.” Tom runs fast to his dad and he shouts,”Hey, I found an underwater camera.” They decide to bring it to a lifeguard. They ask him about the camera, but the lifeguard answers,” I don’t know anything about it. You can keep it.” Tom goes back where he found the camera. He opens the chamber and sees the film. He takes it out and runs to a “One Hour Photo” studio and develops it. He waits for one hour. Finally, Tom has the pictures. He runs back to the beach, and looks through them. The pictures of the underwater world really surprise him. There is picture of some red mechanical fish swimming. There is a picture of an octopus family. Tom sees big octopus children. The big octopus is reading a book. The octopus children are listening. Another picture shows a fish that looks like a balloon and flies on the surface of water. Next picture has a home constructed on the back of a big turtle and many green men with scuba on their back live-under water. The last photo really gets Tom’s attention. On that photo, Tom sees a girl holding a child who is holding a photo of another child. Tom uses a magnifying glass and sees pictures of children from different countries. He examines the photo under the microscope. He finds out the current picture goes back 70 children. Tom takes the film, puts it in the camera and back in to the ocean. One day this camera will continue its adventure. The story will begin again when another child finds this camera.

Gennady and Thuan