Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

Pub Date: September 2011

Historical fiction (Children’s)

608 pgs.

You may have heard the name “Brian Selznick” recently.  His book The Invention of Hugo Cabret won the 2008 Caldecott Medal, and was recently made into a movie by Martin Scorsese, which opens this month under the title Hugo.

Like his last book, Wonderstruck is told through both words and pictures.  Its main characters are Ben Wilson, a boy living in Minnesota in June of 1977, and Rose Kincaid, a girl living in New Jersey in 1927.  While Ben’s story is told entirely through text, Rose’s is told entirely through black-and-white illustrations.

We meet Ben first.  He is devastated and confused after being orphaned by the recent death of his mother.  She was the town librarian, and raised Ben in a sheltered world surrounded by quotations from books that Ben has never read.  One night, Ben wakes up to find a light on in his mother’s room, and he sneaks over to investigate.  What he finds there will lead him to run away from home, needing to find the answers to questions he has had his whole life.

Rose’s story is told alongside Ben’s.  When she sees a man arrive at her front door, Rose frantically climbs out her bedroom window to escape, ending up at the local cinema, where her favorite silent film star’s movie is playing.  Rose returns home to a father who is alienating her, and a tutor who tells her she will be incomplete and alone without his help.  Looking for a sense of belonging that has been missing her whole life, Rose runs away to New York City, where the stories of these two children collide.

Selznick’s beautiful black and white illustrations make up 460 of the book’s 608 pages.  The story moves along at a fast pace, and once you become involved in the lives of the two seemingly unrelated characters, you’ll want to know how the two will come together.  Wonderstruck is an imaginative, engrossing read that will leave you…well, wonderstruck.

-Christine

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