The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Author/Illustrator: Selznick, Brian
Published by: Scholastic Press, 2007
Genre: Historical fiction, Illustrated Novel
Age Range: grade 4 and up
Caldecott Award Winner 2008



This book is about Hugo Cabret, a young orphan boy that lives in the walls of the Paris train station. He takes care of the clocks to hide his uncle's disapperance, and steals to get what he needs. This stealing is what leads to the discovery of his biggest secret and a great adventure. The reader finds out about Hugo's life before the train station and meets other characters whose lives become intertwined with his in more ways than one. In the end the mystery is solved and Hugo gains a family and a sense of identity.

I LOVED this book!! I would recommend it for any age. The illustrations are beautiful. I love how it opens by telling you to pretend you're in a movie theatre, and then the story begins with pictures that progress jusk like in a movie. At first I didn't understand the significance of this but by the end of the book it came toghether. By the end I felt like the structure of the book took on two forms. In one way the pages were what the automaton was writing and drawing on, but in another it was a movie. Even the pages with words look like the white screen framed by the darkness of the theatre.
One of my favorite pages has to be that of the inside of the train station in the beginning of the book. It reminds me of Claude Monet's La Gare St. Lazare, a painting of one of Paris six train stations. The train station featured in the book is that of Gare Montparnasse.

This book draws the reader in with an interesting plot and beautiful illustrations. Then it also incorporates actual movies of the time period as well as some of the history behind movie making, magicians, and automatons. I liked when Hugo and Isabelle went to see a movie and Hugo made a comment about how he thought every movie should end with a great chase scene like the one he had just seen. I knew then that I could look forward to a chase sequence at the end of the book. It is little treasures like that that make this book great for even older readers.

This book could lead into lessons about Paris, machinery, art and movies. Students could draw their own automatons and decide what they would have them do. They could even take it a step further and build them. They might not actually move on their own, but it could lead into lessons about sculpture and form. Students could also work together in teams to write their own mini movies and then star in them using video cameras and imovie. This would incorporate writing, creativity, learning about plot and story structure, teamwork, etc. There could even be a movie viewing day, like the honor ceremony for Georges Melies at the end of the book, where the class would watch everybody's movies.

In the back of the book the author offers a lot of great information about what pictures he used and how to find out more about the movies in the book and the film maker that became part of his story. One of the most interesting things he provides is the link to a clip showing a real automaton writing. http://www.fi.edu/learn/automaton/index.html Amazing!