The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Author: Brian Selznick
Publisher: Scholastic Press
ISBN: 0-439-81378-6
Price: Rs 953
Age: 9 +

I discovered this book in early 2007 while trawling the web for books. The book was not released yet but the website was up by and Selznick’s illustrations were mindblowing! Like Maurice Sendak, Selznick too displays a versatility in his style and it’s always a pleasure to see an artist push the envelope steadily. The concept of this work of art is a skilful blending of illustration and text, combining the idea of filmmaking (Selznick draws inspiration from Georges Méliès the filmmaker from the early 20th century).

Now, the book. It’s a beautifully bound hardback and hopefully the sheer volume of pages will discourage a paperback edition. The pages are thick and every page will make you gasp in wonder.  The illustrations are as much a part of the story and if you take the advice of the author and read it like a movie, the impact is memorable.

Set in turn of the century Paris, Hugo Cabret is an orphan living in a train station. His obsession is to get the robot that his father had found, to work. All he has to guide him are the notes his father left him. Forced to make ends meet when his uncle disappears, Hugo takes up his uncle’s job of being the winder of clocks. He also begins to nick little things from a toy booth in order to fix this robot. There he comes in contact with an unusual girl and the toy booth owner who’s more mysterious than meets the eye and the story picks up pace. The toy booth owner catches Hugo stealing and comes upon the notebook, which makes him really angry. He confiscates it and threatens to destroy the book. Hugo is now desperate to get it back; he is determined to finish what his father started. Selznick ties it all up rather neatly in the end.

It’s a well-told story but more than that it is an exciting book to hold and read. The storyline is interesting and at times it may feel as though the charcoal sketches overpower the text. But it’s a book I recommend strongly and if you have a few reluctant readers in your class, try this book on them – the sheer volume may look intimidating but once they open the book and see that more than half of it is in pictures, they may actually try and see what it’s all about.

Brian Selznick worked at a bookstore while also writing and illustrating his first book, The Houdini Box. He is probably best known for his illustrations for Andrew Clements Frindle. Selznick won the Caldecott Honor for The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins (2001). 

Aravinda A.