The Invention of Hugo Cabret: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick, 533 pagesHugo Cabret is the orphaned son of a clockmaker, living in an apartment above a busy Paris train station and surreptitiously winding all of the station's clocks while stealing what little food he needs to stay alive. He also steals some windup toys from a shop in the station, taking apart the cogs and wheels to fix an automaton his father had been restoring when he died. Things get a bit sticky when Hugo is apprehended pilfering a windup mouse, but, in a roundabout way, getting caught opens Hugo's eyes to early French cinema and Victorian-era magicians.
The flap copy on The Invention of Hugo Cabret calls the book "a cinematic tour de force," which seems an odd descriptor for a novel. However, after reading it, I'm convinced that "cinematic" is probably the best way to describe this story. Nearly half of the book's 533 pages are wordless full-page illustrations that keep the plot moving along. None of these images are described in the surrounding pages, making them vital to Selznick's storytelling, and several are parts of series that zoom in from a wide-angle shot to focus on a small detail, such as running feet or Hugo's hands working on clockwork toy; they would almost function as rough-draft animation cells, though with much greater detail.
While Selznick's storytelling style and the focus on the cinematic works of Georges Milies makes this story seem magical, the tale itself is all entirely possible (though perhaps not entirely probable) in the real world. It's a rare book that can do that, and for that reason, The Invention of Hugo Cabret deserves the Caldecott Medal it won. An excellent story for kids, cinemaphiles, and fans of magical realism a la The Night Circus.
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