The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (2007)

Totally unique kind of book. This is a children's book about a historical figure - Georges Melies, an early filmmaker. The book is very visual and meant to give you a sense of watching a movie, but not like a simple picture book. Of the 530 pages in the book, almost 300 are illustrations. The text pages alone would be a fairly short chapter book. The black and white illustrations are great, you actually feel the boy Hugo running through the train station, you see him slipping away in his hideaways by observing the sole of a shoe in a doorway. The story is again my favorite kind - historical fiction. Hugo is fictional, but Melies, is not and the elaborate wind-up toys are also real. The book is so unique it has it's own website where the author explains his process.