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134 of 139 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderstruck, September 13, 2011
This review is from: Wonderstruck (Hardcover)
At over 600 pages, Wonderstruck is, physically, a brick of a book but it is filled with poetry of intertwining prose and picture and will, hopefully, leave you as 'Wonderstruck' as it left me. It is 1977 in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, and Ben Wilson is a young boy who has lost his mother. He now lives with his well-meaning aunt and uncle who are struggling financially, sharing a room with a resentful and bullying cousin, Robby, and wishing for the one thing that he can never have. Robby, partially deaf, has grown up in the sheltered world created by his mom, a single mother and librarian who fed his fascination with outer space and covered their fridge with her favorite quotations, and she isn't coming back. "The North Star was the last star in the tail of the Little Dipper, and the book said that travelers had used this star for centuries to find their way when they were lost. "If you are ever lost," his mom said when he showed her the book, "just find the North Star and it will lead you home." His mom smiled, and pointed to a bulletin board next to her desk. Unlike the refrigerator at home, it had just one quote taped to it. Ben read it out loud: "'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'" Because his mom was the town librarian, Ben was used to being surrounded by quotes from books, many of which he didn't fully understand. But this one struck him as particularly strange." (p.21-22) One night, while looking up at the stars from the window of his cousin's room, Ben sees a light in his mother's window that, for him, is the beginning of a journey to find what has always been missing from his life. Interspersed with Ben's story is that of a young girl, told only in pictures. Her story begins enigmatically- a small girl sitting at a desk, surrounded by models of skyscrapers which appear to be made after the view from her window of the 1927 New York City skyline. Why does she write a note with the words "Help Me" on it? Is she a prisoner in this room where she must have spent so many painstaking hours creating the models around her? Why does she seem fixated on a famous actress, enough so to climb down the tree outside her window to sneak off to see one of her silent films at the movie theater? Selznick has intricately woven the two stories together- two separate stories that parallel one another so completely they help to tell the other, eventually merging into one larger image. This story will grab you by the heart, break it and then put it back together again and make it want to sing. It is lovely and different- both a work of literature and a work of art. When you pick this book up and flip through it, it will appear to be a sort of overblown picture book. As you read, however, you will find that, while there are more pages of pictures than of text(I mean that seriously- there are 460 pages of artwork out of the 600+, so if you are not interested in a book with a largely graphic component, this may not be for you), the story is richly layered and full of small, important details, both in words and pictures. Even though you will likely find this book classified among the young reader's section and it is a story about two children, the book is like a 'Cabinet of Wonder' that Ben reads about in one of his mother's books- an ornate piece of furniture "with dozens of tiny doors and drawers and hidden spaces filled with a nearly infinite variety of amazing items". Adults should find themselves more than sufficiently challenged to delve into all the symbolism and fine details. Kids and adults will be captured by the compelling prose and beautiful pencil drawings- I went back and looked at various pictures often several times, sometimes scanning for more clues, more details, but often just to marvel at the story unfolding in front of me. I cannot wait to share this with my 8 and 11 year-old daughters- my 11-year-old has already absconded with it but I think we will be reading it again, storybook style, as a family over the next few days. This is the kind of book that provides a strong argument against getting rid of 'real' books in favor of e-books. I know this will be among my more treasured volumes and will remain on my shelf, even as I cull other books from the 'herd'. I hope that readers will not pass on this because it looks too much like a 'children's book', really, I believe it is an 'everyone's book'.
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39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awestruck at "Wonderstruck", September 17, 2011
This review is from: Wonderstruck (Hardcover)
Many of my friends are just discovering Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, perhaps because of the movie coming out in a few months time. In that delightful tale, we are whisked away to a Parisian train station, a boy with a few secrets, an even more secretive marvelous machine, and the redemptive powers of it all. Selznick somehow managed to blend a few of my favorite things in that story (trains! silent movies! kids!) into quite a modern and engaging story. The question is: would lightening strike again? The answer is, I'm so happy to report, a resounding yes. "Wonderstruck" is a blessing, a marvel, another masterstroke from this author/artist. In this book, we meet Ben, deaf in one ear, mourning the loss of his librarian mother from icy roads in Northern Minnesota in the 1970's. Living with aunt and uncle now, Ben longs to unlock many of his own mysteries, from his dreaming about wolves to the identity of his father. Ben starts his journey by returning one night to his house, in which going through his mother's things, he uncovers many things she had kept hidden from him, which soon launches his quest. In a second story, told not through text but pictures, we meet Rose, a girl living in 1920's New Jersey with views of New York City, who is starstruck by a silent film actress and longs to see her. Wonderstruck tells and shows the stories of these two people in ways that surprise and delight the reader through the story, none of which shall be revealed here. Selznick does many things in this book that, beyond the marvelous story he tells, show true craftsmanship. First, as it was true with Hugo Cabret, his illustrations are heartfelt and glorious. As an artist, he understands the importance of the eyes, and in each of his drawings that have characters in them, you are immediately drawn to them. It's so reflective of silent films, in which the performers told the stories with their eyes. Secondly, he starts Ben's and Rose's stories in two different ways: Ben uses words, Rose uses pictures. While the stories are occurring in different decades, he skillfully blends the end of one part of the first story, and seemingly starts the second one at a similar spot. I didn't notice he was doing this until halfway through the book, and by then, I was sold on his brilliance. Wonderstruck manages to take some more of my interests and blends them together: New York City, museums, dioramas, and Minnesota (that's where I was born). In fact, as I was reading this book, on my coffee table sits a book about the dioramas in the American Museum of Natural History: Windows on Nature: The Great Habitat Dioramas of the American Museum of Natural History. It's odd how life arranges itself to coincide with stories. Finally, a friendship forms between Ben and another boy (details not to be revealed here!) that so touched me, that it brought out the theme that Selznick always dwells on: relationships. I can't recommend this book highly enough; it's filled with honest people, real emotions, and at its heart, the human relationships we all strive to thrive upon. This is the book of the year.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully Illustrated and Riveting, September 17, 2011
This review is from: Wonderstruck (Hardcover)
Two stories, set fifty years apart; interwoven. One told through pictures and the other told through words. The first story is of Ben, a young boy in the 1977 who just lost his mother and sets out to look for his father. The second story follows Rose, a young girl from 1927's New Jersey who sets out to look for her idol, a movie star. Both children's search take them to New York City. Both children - deaf - are struggling to find what they are looking for in a world where hearing is normal and sometimes taken for granted. In a sense, they end up mirroring each other's search and face similar hardships. How their lives intertwine in the end, though I was able to guess, was still very bittersweet. I enjoyed the illustrations immensely. Brian Selznick sets out to tell a story through his pictures and he succeeds. The details in some of the pictures were amazing. I found myself looking forward to Rose's story even though I loved reading Ben's. Brian also gives the reader a glimpse into Deaf culture, a culture that I've never experienced, and opened my eyes to a different lifestyle. I appreciated the way he told the story, giving the reader a glimpse into a world that some might not be familiar with. The story also echos with the longing we all have to belong somewhere, to be a part of something. Wonderstruck is, at it's core, a story of acceptance and community. It's quite relatable and because of this, I think many people will enjoy reading it.
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