100!!

So Blogger tells me that this is my 100th post.  Wow, who woulda thunk it.  But the books just keep on comin and I thought I would celebrate this momentous occasion with a starteling confession: I was wrong.  I typically consider myself to be a pretty good judge of books, but even beyond that I feel like I am a pretty good judge of what books people will like. Well that was not true for David Wiesner's Flotsam.

This is another wordless book and it is a fascinating look at life in the beach by using pictures within pictures.  It tells the story of an underwater camera through the pictures developed from that camera.  And it's really neat.  Even though I really liked it, I didn't really think that the girls would.  Eva has said that, "it's not really a story unless it has words."

Well man was I wrong.  Both girls absolutely loved it! They were pointing out the details on each page saying, "look a seahorse," "Ooohh mermaids."  Eva said, "wait there's no words, ok." And she immediately put herself in the role of narrator creating a detailed story out of the illustrations (just another proof that illustrations aren't just pretty pictures they are dynamic communicative tools).  Eva and Leya noticed things about the pictures that I hadn't on my first "reading."  In fact everytime I tried to turn the page I was met with cries of "wait, wiat we're not done looking!"

Taking time to really look at the pictures...that's kids stuff

PS. In case you were wondering Flotsam means: something that floats. Here is how the jacket draws you into the book, "If it floats in the ocean, it may wash up on the beach, where someone may find it and be astonished, and share the discovery with someone else."