Scholastic, 2007
ISBN: 0439813786
Available: New
Brian Selznick (The Boy With A Thousand Faces) has once again produced a homage to early horror movies. Fourteen year old Hugo Cabret winds the clocks of a busy Paris train station in secrecy, hoping that nobody will notice the absence of his uncle, the station’s timekeeper. Successfully hiding his existence from the station inspector, Hugo is attempting to repair a broken automaton his clockmaker father discovered in a museum fire. When the old man who runs the station’s toy stall confiscates the notebook with his plans, Hugo’s attempts to recover it draw him into discoveries about the old man’s mysterious past, the creator of the automaton, and the maker of the first horror movies. Using the conventions of early French cinema, Brian Selznick tells much of the story visually, using black and white pencil drawings, using only 26,000 words in 511 pages. An astonishing and unique expression of the novel form, combining elements of picture book, graphic novel, and film to create a new kind of reading experience, The Invention of Hugo Cabret is an atmospherically creepy story that no lover of early horror movies should miss. Recommended for all libraries, for readers from upper elementary to adult, and especially for reluctant readers and mystery lovers. Contains: theft, references to the devil. Review by Francesca the Librarian