Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that the hero of the story has a sad life. Orphaned, alone, and homeless, he lives by stealing and scavenging, and no one is kind to him until late in the book.
Families who read this book could discuss some of the research-based themes the author includes. How can an automaton be made to write poems and draw pictures? How do they work? How were the earliest films made? Many kids will want to learn more about mechanical machines and automata, and about the history of film, especially the work of Georges Melies. And they may also want to see the films referred to in the story.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
And now for something completely different.
This book is like nothing you've ever seen before. When you or your child first pick it up, it looks like one of those fat fantasies that are so popular these days. When you open it, it seems similar to a graphic novel. But lengthy sections of wordless illustrations (284 pages of drawings!) are interspersed with pages of more traditional novelistic prose. Neither text nor pictures can stand alone without the other.
The pictures are in black and white, printed on black paper, so that they look like they're projected on a screen, like a silent movie. And they resemble the storyboard for that film, with close-ups, tracking shots, zooms, etc. The overall effect is a strikingly successful cross between a book and movie.
Selznick's brilliant hybrid is put in service of a complex and heartfelt story that involves a plucky orphan, the history of early cinema, the mechanics of clocks and other intricate machinery, and a little bit of magic. The whole is a work of great beauty and excitement, with breathless pacing ramped up even further by the wordless sections. Selznick has created a new, hybrid art form that succeeds as art, literature, and entertainment. Let's hope it's the first of a new genre.
From The Book
Picture Excerpt
But before you turn the page, I want you to picture yourself sitting in the darkness, like the beginning of a movie. On screen, the sun will soon rise, and you will find yourself zooming toward a train station in the middle of the city. You will rush through the doors into a crowded lobby. You will eventually spot a boy amid the crowd, and he will start to move through the train station. Follow him, because this is Hugo Cabret. His head is full of secrets, and he's waiting for his story to begin.
Plot Summary:
When Hugo's father, a clockmaker, is killed in a fire, he's taken in by his uncle. They live together in a hidden room inside the walls of the Paris train station, where it's his job to maintain the station clocks -- until one night he disappears. Now Hugo is alone, still living inside the station walls, stealing to survive, and still maintaining the clocks so no one will know his uncle is gone.
Hugo also works on an automaton, a mechanical man, that his father was trying to restore. He steals parts from a toyshop in the station. When he is caught, the mean store owner takes away his father's notebook and threatens him with arrest. But the old man's hidden past and Hugo's are intertwined, and the secret message hidden in the automaton's workings is only the beginning. Includes Acknowledgments, Credits, and References.
Related Books:
Other Books by Brian Selznick:
The Robot King
The Houdine Box
The Boy of a Thousand Faces
More Homeless Orphans:
Street Child by Berlie Doherty
The Wild Children by Felice Holman
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
Related Web Sites:
Automata
The Film on YouTube
Official Site
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ViolenceA boy's hand is crushed in a door. |
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Social BehaviorA child survives by stealing, and many adults are mean to him. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoDrinking and drunkenness. |
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