The Invention of Hugo Cabret | Brian Selznick

The Invention of Hugo Cabret | Brian Selznick | Hugo Cabret

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The Invention of H...

	The Invention of Hugo Cabret Brian Selznick Scholastic Press, 2007 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 209 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Beautiful Storytelling

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" takes place in Paris, in the early 20th century. It tells the tale of an orphan named Hugo who secretely lives in a train station and fixes the clocks, unbeknownst to the stationmaster. Hugo is not just an ordinary boy however. In addition to his deftness with clocks, he also has a gift with all mechanical objects and spends much of his time stealing odds and ends from the toymaker's booth in order to fix up his personal pieces of clockwork. One such piece is a large mechanical man left to him by his father that has the capability of relating a mysterious message to him. Hugo is convinced that the message will be from his father beyond the grave and so he is obssessed with fixing the mechanical man any way that he can.
What makes this tale unique and proves Selznick's mastery at storytelling is the way in which he chooses to tell it. At first glance, the book is thick and daunting, especially to a child who is fearful of too many words on a page. This story however, is told half through words and half through pictures. Selznick's lively and touching drawings prove his talent as an artist and much of the story is gleaned through study of these pictures. While one could zip through the story in an hour, you wouldn't want to because so much can and should be absorbed through a careful study of his artwork.
I recommend this book highly to those who are interested in unique methods of storytelling as well as to those children who are simply not all that interested in books. While it might seem a cop out to give a child a book that is told largely through pictures I believe that it can be quite useful in helping children to feel confident in reading something that might at first glance appear too daunting to pick up. Studying such pictures can help to improve their attention to detail in a story as well as help them to feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Ages 9 and up.

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Hugo Cabret

I bought this as a present for my little brother. He has reread it twice in the first week!

Hugo for President!

"Hugo Cabret" is a great read! It is a very thick book but an avid reader (probably from teen age and up) could read in a couple of hours, so don't let its size fool you. The artwork is so beautiful, done in a cross-hatch style; actually the author and illustrator are one and the same. I have heard this book will be made into a movie next year.

This book can easily be the center of a unit study for homeschoolers, leading to mini-lessons on the topics of film-making, cross-hatch art, automata, clockwork, and myriad other topics which the author discusses.

I highly recommend this book, especially for students who might not necessarily like to read. It's a 'storybook' for older students!

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A good novel with great pictures.

This book is about a boy who lives in a station in Paris. He fixes clocks and works with machinery. He has to bear the weight of his drunk, absent uncle from whom Hugo took the responsibility of keeping the clocks of the station working. His father had found an automaton, which is a machine that can move and perform abilities, but all through the machinery of a clock. This particular automaton is of a man at a desk, posed as if to write something. This story is about the boy trying to find what the automaton of a man is writing when he is fixed.
I loved the illustrations in the book. What is interesting about this book is it is not written like a traditional graphic novel, but it has writing on a few pages, then the next few pages will be illustrations of the next part of the book. The author does not illustrate what he had explained in words, but what happens next. The pictures continue the story where the words leave off. The pictures tell their own part of the story. It is such a creative style of writing and illustrating. The author weaves such an interesting story, but it is his illustrations that make this novel so fascinating and compelling. The illustrations are drawn in a kid- friendly way, but they still contain depth and it looks to me that the author took a lot of time for just one of them. It only took about an hour or two to read, but it was exciting until the very end. The book has 550 pages, but 284 of the pages are pictures. The plot is a combination of mysteries and secrets that all want to be solved.

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the Invention of Hugo Cabret

This short adventure holds many surprising turns and twists. For any age, this picture book/adventure is good.
Peter Bell Tevis Jr. High School

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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