The+Invention+of+Hugo+Cabret

Book Review by: Stacey Garrity
 * The Invention of Hugo Cabret **

The Invention of Hugo Cabret Author: Brian Selznick Publisher: Scholastic, Inc., March 1, 2007 Format: Hardcover $16.96 (Barnes and Noble) ISBN-13: 9780439813785 Reading level: 8-12 Years Pages: 544 Pages Language: English

Summary: Hugo Cabret is an orphan boy who secretly maintains the clocks at a Paris railway station. Hugo’s father died in a fire while repairing an automaton, a highly complex machine designed to look and write like a human being. Hugo has saved the remains of the automaton, and steals mechanical parts in his attempt to finish his father’s project of restoring it. Hugo is convinced that, once restored, the automaton will convey a message to him from his deceased father. Hugo’s eventually crosses paths with Isabelle, another orphan, and her godfather Papa George, the toymaker in the railway station from whom Hugo has been stealing parts for the automaton. The restored automaton has a kind of message from Hugo’s father, but it turns out the message is also connected to Papa Georges. As the story unfolds, Hugo, Papa Georges, and Isabelle are all transformed due to their relationships with each other and the automaton.

Book Review: //The Invention of Hugo Cabret// is unlike any book I have ever read. It has lots of pages, but half of the story is in black and white pictures and photos, so it’s a quicker read than you might expect. The illustrations used do not only represent the text in the chapters, but they continue the story as well. As the book’s website says “//The Invention of Hugo Cabret// is not exactly a novel, and it’s not quite a picture book, and it’s not really a graphic novel, or a flip book, or a movie, but a combination of all these things.”

About the Author: Brian Selznick was born in New Jersey on July 14, 1966. He attended the Rhode Island School for design with the intention of beginning a career in theatrical set design. Rather than go into theater though, he began pursuing the world of children’s literature. In 1991 //The Houdini Box// was published, a book that Selznick wrote as well as illustrated. Although Selznick is best known for //The Invention of Hugo Cabret// (the first full length novel to win the Caldecott Award), he also illustrated such books as //Frindle//, //When Marian Sang//, and //The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins//.

Literary Element Analysis: One literary element used in //The Invention of Hugo Cabret// is symbolism. An example of this is the significance of clocks. Clocks symbolize the threat of time that creeps up on the characters. For Papa Georges it means that he has to admit to his past as a filmmaker and let people know that he’s not dead. He has to embrace the good things that he achieved along with accepting the bad things that happened to his film company and his good friends. For Hugo, he has to admit to himself that he cannot go on living in the train station. It is not a sustainable way to live and someone is bound to catch on that a little boy is stealing from all the shops. It’s time to stop being frozen in time and move on.

Another literary element found in this book is the illustrations. Most of the illustrations are done as black and white pencil sketches, which are filled with detail and focus in on the faces of the characters and the places they’re in. This helps add to the text and creates a kind of visual narrative for the reader. Not only does Selznick use drawings to add to the story, but he also uses actual photographs or still frames from a movie so the reader understands the realness of the story.