Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (2011)

OK, I've found the book to give my goddaughter for Christmas. I just went to see the movie Hugo, which reminded me how wonderful the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret was. The movie was great too, but the story it is based on had to be phenomenal to begin with, full of history, plus I had forgotten that it was set in Paris (this year's theme.)

Wonderstruck is again half text and half illustrations - Ben's story is told mostly in text and Rose's story is all in images until their stories meet. Technically it is more illustrations as it takes more pages of illustrations to tell the story, so it will be 2-4 pages of text, then 6-10 pages of illustrations - these charcoal drawings, often moody, but so expressive, from various angles, zooming in on a detail like a movie might do. It all adds up to another wonderful hefty book at 637 pages, but can be read quickly.

Ben has lost his mother and lives with his relatives on Gunflint Lake in Minnesota in 1977. He is deaf in one ear and likes to collect things. One stormy night he goes to his old house and starts looking for his past, maybe some clue to the identity of his father.

Rose is a young deaf girl in Hoboken, NJ of 1927. She keeps a scrapbook of her mother, a famous actress that has left them. Rose is lonely, wants to run away, and likes to build models of New York City's tall buildings that she can see from her window.

Obviously these two stories will get intertwined in some way, but I don't want to spoil the adventure for the next reader. I will just mention just a few things that struck a cord with me.

• I like places like Gunflint Lake in northern Minnesota, on the border with Canada. There actually is a Gunflint Lodge and I put that in a place for notes on good travel suggestions. 
• I remember collecting things, especially from nature. My cousin had a whole tiny room full of them, and I started up again when I had a son to raise. I have now confined my nature collection mostly to one small case in the TV room.
• Selznick is obviously interested in the history of cinema - we get another glimpse, this time the move from silent to talkie movies
• I love museums, but nowadays it is mostly art and historical. I was more fascinated with natural history museums in childhood. I know we went to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC when I was a kid, maybe even as a field trip from school. I have always loved dioramas - I fantasized about making them myself.
• I liked that Ben's mom was a librarian and that another character runs a bookstore.
• I was at the 1964 World's Fair, but don't seem to remember the Panorama of NYC - it still exists and another thing I can put on my list of things to see when I travel.
• I liked being reminded about the deaf world. I am somewhat aware, having a deaf family friend when I was little and working with deaf a bit in my State Hospital job in Ohio many years ago. Just have not run into Deaf culture lately. Liked how Selznick had researched it.
• I am always amazed when a fiction book has references - I wish more did, as I know authors have to do research to come up with the settings and historical background. Selznick has a lengthy acknowledgments section that explains his research process, and then a solid list of references.

Now just have to wait for this to come out as a movie too.