Brian Selznick is one of my new favorites children’s authors/illustrators. I read this one with Mary Anneliese at night before bedtime. Each chapter was so intriguing that she always wanted me to read more. At 530 pages, it’s a long book for children, but the illustrations make up roughly half of the book, and they are captivating. So much so that this book won Selznick the Caldecott Medal in 2008.
The story is one of young Hugo Cabret, who was orphaned by his clockmaker father and now lives alone in a Paris train station where he maintains the station clocks. Hugo’s father introduces him to a broken automaton, which Hugo becomes obsessed with repairing so that it can reveal to Hugo a message from his father. The bitter old man who runs the station’s toy booth becomes a rival of Hugo’s and threatens to destroy Hugo’s automaton and thereby silence his father forever. Does Hugo resolve the conflict and triumph in the end? You’ll have to read the book to find out!
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