What secrets lie hidden at the bottom of the ocean?
What fascinating creatures live deep down, where no human can go?
The fish know the secret . . . and now, so do you.

From "the most inventive and cerebral visual storyteller in children's literature" (Kirkus Reviews) comes a stunning wordless story that invites children and adults alike to stretch their imaginations on a wondrous undersea voyage.

On a seemingly ordinary day at the beach, a budding young scientist makes a jaw-dropping discovery. A barnacle-encrusted underwater camera has washed up on the shore, holding on its reel of film fantastical images that no human eye has seen. Moving cities, an octopus in a lounge chair, a clockwork fish. And yet, there is one more secret, even more astonishing than these surreal scenes: the camera has journeyed not only through the depths of the ocean but through the past, hiding in its last photo a visual timeline of children from around the world.

In each of his amazing picture books, David Wiesner takes the familiar and the ordinary—a trip to the Empire State Building, a well-known nursery tale, a Tuesday evening—and shows us magical possibilities. This time, a visit to the seashore is a springboard into a wildly imaginative exploration of the mysteries of the deep.

"When you read a book with text, you're hearing the author's voice. Without text, your own voice is free to tell the story," says Wiesner. "I may have been thinking one thing as I worked on the book, but a reader can think something quite different, and their version of what is going on is as valid as mine. A wordless book really becomes complete when someone reads it."

Accept FLOTSAM's wordless invitation and take a journey you'll never forget.

"[An] immensely satisfying excursion." —Publisher's Weekly, starred review

"Not to be resisted." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Wiesner offers another exceptional, wordless picture book that finds wild magic in quiet, everyday settings. . . . this visual wonder offers an invitation for viewers of all ages to rethink how they see, out in the world and in their mind's eye." —Booklist, starred review

David Wiesner is a highly acclaimed picture book author/illustrator who has won two Caldecott Medals (for Tuesday and The Three Pigs) and two Caldecott Honors (for Free Fall and Sector 7). A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he lives with his family near Philadelphia.

FLOTSAM
By David Wiesner
A Clarion Books Hardcover / September 4, 2006
0-618-19457-6 / $17.00 / 40 pages / Ages 5-8

Clarion Books is a Houghton Mifflin Company imprint.
Visit us on the web at www.clarionbooks.com