Brian Selznick

Hugo is a boy who lives in a train station. He used to live there with his uncle, but his uncle disappeared and hasn't returned; fortunately, he taught Hugo how to wind the clocks, and Hugo has continued to do so, so the stationmaster hasn't realized that Hugo's uncle is missing. In his free time, Hugo works on repairing an automaton that his father found in the museum where he worked; the automaton has a pen in his hand, and Hugo hopes that if he repairs it, it will write him a message from show more his father.

But Hugo's work is jeopardized when the cranky toy shop owner catches him stealing toys (for parts) and takes his precious sketchbook from him. He claims to have burned it, but his granddaughter Isabelle tells Hugo that he didn't, and he enlists her help to get it back. He does not trust or confide in her at first, but eventually they become friends, and it becomes clear that the toy shop owner and the automaton are closely connected.

Part of the story is told in text, part in illustration. Selznick's art is beautiful and evocative, as easy to read as his text, whether it's depicting people, clockwork, hands, keys, or books.

"Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason?" he asked Isabelle. "They are built to make you laugh....or to tell the time...or to fill you with wonder....Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do...
Maybe it's the same with people," Hugo continued. "If you lose your purpose...it's like you're broken." (374)

Hugo and Isabelle were quiet for a moment, and then Isabelle said, "So is that your purpose? Fixing things?"
Hugo thought about it. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe."
"Then what's my purpose?" wondered Isabelle.
"I don't know," said Hugo. (375)

"I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too." (378) show less

Martin Scorsese's film Hugo, based on Brian Selznick's YA novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret was a great surprise to me when I saw it. It pressed all my buttons and yet was promoted (in the UK at least) as though it were a children's film and little else. In fact, it is a hymn of praise to cinema and its pioneers, and on that journey it takes in steam trains, old Paris, clockwork toys, Art Deco advertising posters and with a bit of a nod to steampunkery. What's not to like?

This book is show more rather more than just "the making of...". It looks in some detail at the history and real-life events behind the film (for the story it tells about Georges Méliès is essentially true) and has a lot of material on the people connected with the film - not just the actors but a lot of the production staff down to designers and continuity people. There is also a lot of production photography as well as selected film stills, and some production paperwork, such as Scorsese's own storyboards and designs, in particular for the automaton.

I have one small criticism. The book seems to be written for a specifically American audience, so some of what I at first thought of as dumbing-down - or even possibly talking down to children - might have been adjustments required for the US market. (Or perhaps not. My other half lectures in digital media at a British university, and some of the gaps in her students' knowledge about film, and making things, and cultural and filmic references generally, have me quite amazed.)

But despite that, I can recommend the book wholly to anyone who saw the film, and indeed to anyone interested in cinema as an interest or a career. show less

This reminded me of Dandelion Wine. Vignettes within a common frame, each with its measure of wonder and strangeness, filled with boyhood exuberance but also loss and a ripening awareness that time both passes (irrevocably) and pauses (poignantly), sometimes within the same moment.

Selznick was absolutely right to title this Kaleidoscope. Fragments of imagery recur in these stories, and while I found my own meaning in them, I'm not sure another reader would share it. I bring my own show more experiences of grief and loneliness and my own treasured ideas—among them the vicissitudes of knowledge, the power of wonder, the mutability and tentativeness of reality—to the book, and those lenses shape not just what I see, but how I piece it together.

And maybe this is just more of the same—more of me seeing what I want to see—but while Kaleidoscope might allow its readers to find their own personal truths, I think the kaleidoscope structure, itself, holds a truth about how we respond to loss or trauma. The fragments, the shifting shapes they make, the ways moments form and reform, never reverting to what they were, but telling and retelling stories about where they came from, each story true but incomplete, each story a necessary piece in a mosaic that reconstructs an approximation of what was, even as it shapes and reshapes what is and what will be. show less

This book is standalone evidence of why ebooks suck. It's one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen. The story is good, but I'm not even going to talk about it because it's nothing compared to the feel of the thick pages in your hands, the starkness of the white text box against the black page, and the minimalist beauty of the pencil drawings.
I really, really enjoyed this type of graphic novel better than the "traditional" kind. Every few pages of just text, there are a few pages of show more just pictures that tell the next part of the story. Pictures really can sometimes tell a story better and more richly than words, but separating the text from the illustrations lets each part shine on its own. show less