Wonderstruck
by Brian Selznick
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Description
Having lost his mother and his hearing in a short time, twelve-year-old Ben leaves his Minnesota home in 1977 to seek the father he never knew in New York City, and meets there Rose, who is also longing for something missing from her life. Ben's story is told in words; Rose's in pictures.Tags
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Unoriginality Same author. Filled with many beautiful illustrations like in Wonderstruck. In my opinion it is show more superior to Wonderstruck. show less
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Member Reviews
If you liked The Invention of Hugo Cabret, you will love Wonderstruck. If you haven't read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, you should read them both. Brian Selznick is a genius of storytelling in words and pictures.
Wonderstruck begins with the story of Ben, a boy who lives in Minnesota in 1977. Ben's story is told in words. His mother has just died, and he doesn't know his father. But clues from his mother's room set him on a journey. Interspersed with Ben's story is the story of Rose, a girl in New York City in 1927. Rose's story, told entirely in pictures, is also a story of a child searching for her place in the world. The storylines and the ways they are told come together in a way that feels natural, not forced. The story is also show more richly layered. Selznick weaves in information about Deaf culture, museums, life in Minnesota, life in New York, and more For me, this was a very satisfying read.
I also have to note that this is a beautiful book. The pictures themselves are striking. The characters look up off the page directly into the reader's eyes. Although I was drawn into the story and often turned the pages quickly, I want to go back and savor the pictures. But the words are beautiful too. Ben and Rose both know hardships in their lives, but the story is ultimately one of hope and connection. show less
Wonderstruck begins with the story of Ben, a boy who lives in Minnesota in 1977. Ben's story is told in words. His mother has just died, and he doesn't know his father. But clues from his mother's room set him on a journey. Interspersed with Ben's story is the story of Rose, a girl in New York City in 1927. Rose's story, told entirely in pictures, is also a story of a child searching for her place in the world. The storylines and the ways they are told come together in a way that feels natural, not forced. The story is also show more richly layered. Selznick weaves in information about Deaf culture, museums, life in Minnesota, life in New York, and more For me, this was a very satisfying read.
I also have to note that this is a beautiful book. The pictures themselves are striking. The characters look up off the page directly into the reader's eyes. Although I was drawn into the story and often turned the pages quickly, I want to go back and savor the pictures. But the words are beautiful too. Ben and Rose both know hardships in their lives, but the story is ultimately one of hope and connection. show less
"Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders."
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick is sweet and well-done. As with Hugo Cabret, he interlaces a text story with beautifully drawn pencil sketches. Young Ben has lost his mother and lives with his aunt and uncle in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, and longs to meet his unknown father. He finds a clue in a book, and on his own takes off for New York City to find him. Much of what unfolds involves the American Museum of Natural History there. Meanwhile, we're introduced in the illustrations to a young deaf girl from an earlier time who also makes her way to NYC. For much of the book it is difficult to see how the two stories will merge, but eventually they do in a satisfying way.
Selznick has show more created a unique genre all his own, consisting of a 600 or so page book which combines an engaging text story with an equally engaging story told solely through illustration. He deserves credit for the confidence of his vision, and also for the strong hearts that beat in his books. show less
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick is sweet and well-done. As with Hugo Cabret, he interlaces a text story with beautifully drawn pencil sketches. Young Ben has lost his mother and lives with his aunt and uncle in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, and longs to meet his unknown father. He finds a clue in a book, and on his own takes off for New York City to find him. Much of what unfolds involves the American Museum of Natural History there. Meanwhile, we're introduced in the illustrations to a young deaf girl from an earlier time who also makes her way to NYC. For much of the book it is difficult to see how the two stories will merge, but eventually they do in a satisfying way.
Selznick has show more created a unique genre all his own, consisting of a 600 or so page book which combines an engaging text story with an equally engaging story told solely through illustration. He deserves credit for the confidence of his vision, and also for the strong hearts that beat in his books. show less
Part novel, part wordless graphic novel, Selznick's brick of a wonderbook tells a story of injury, escape, fear, friendship, family, exploration, and wonder - the archetypal "Juvenile Fiction" book of 2011, but this guy in his mid-20s certainly fell under its spell and devoured the book over the course of a day. If I have one minor nibble of a complaint, it is how the last fifth of the book is a tad too sentimental, but I probably just had ringing in my ears from the thunderous peaks of storytelling that lead to it in the first 4/5.
I was one of the few readers who just couldn't get into "Hugo Cabret." The combination of pictures and text mutually telling the story baffled me and I never found myself fully engaged because I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on story-wise. I ended up putting it aside not even halfway through and never going back to it. I didn't have that problem with "Wonderstruck," though. I really enjoyed it. I loved the format, the illustrations, the two disparate storylines that eventually joined together. The story was very emotional but not cheesey or preachy. Overall the whole book was just lovely. I knocked off a star for the fact that there were just too many coincidences plot-wise, but this is definitely a worthwhile read.
I'm not fond of books where we follow two different parties and they do or do not meet up. But the two stories in this book are blended together so skillfully, that swapping from one viewpoint to the other hardly interrupted the flow. Ben, newly orphaned and stuck living with his cousins, wants a father he's never known. Rose, stuck watching the distant city through her window, wants to escape. Within a few pages, I cared about both of them. Ben's story is in words, and Rose's in pictures, but they flow over and under each other without any break in the tension. And the ending has surprises.
I'd give this to anyone who ever wanted to hid in a museum.
I'd give this to anyone who ever wanted to hid in a museum.
Brian Selznick didn't have to do it.
He didn't have to return to the groundbreaking pictures-and-text format that stunned the children's-book world in 2007 and won him an unlikely—though entirely deserved—Caldecott medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Weighing in at about two pounds, the 500-plus page tome combined textual and visual storytelling in a way no one had quite seen before. In a world where the new becomes old in the blink of an eye, Selznick could have honorably rested on his laurels and returned to the standard 32-to-48–page picture-book format he has already mastered. He didn't have to try to top himself. But he has. If Hugo Cabret was a risky experiment that succeeded beyond Selznick and publisher Scholastic’s show more wildest dreams (well, maybe not Scholastic’s—they dream big), his follow-up, Wonderstruck, is a far riskier enterprise. In replicating the storytelling format of Hugo, Selznick begs comparisons that could easily find Wonderstruck wanting or just seem stale. Like its predecessor, this self-described "novel in words and pictures" opens with a cinematic, multi-page, wordless black-and-white sequence: Two wolves lope through a wooded landscape, the illustrator's "camera" zooming in to the eye of one till readers are lost in its pupil. The scene changes abruptly, to Gunflint Lake, Minn., in 1977. Prose describes how Ben Wilson, age 12, wakes from a nightmare about wolves. He's three months an orphan, living with his aunt and cousins after his mother's death in an automobile accident; he never knew his father. Then the scene cuts again, to Hoboken in 1927. A sequence of Selznick's now-trademark densely crosshatched black-and-white drawings introduces readers to a girl, clearly lonely, who lives in an attic room that looks out at New York City and that is filled with movie-star memorabilia and models—scads of them—of the skyscrapers of New York. Readers know that the two stories will converge, but Selznick keeps them guessing, cutting back and forth with expert precision. Both children leave their unhappy homes and head to New York City, Ben hoping to find his father and the girl also in search of family. The girl, readers learn, is deaf; her silent world is brilliantly evoked in wordless sequences, while Ben’s story unfolds in prose. Both stories are equally immersive and impeccably paced. The two threads come together at the American Museum of Natural History, Selznick's words and pictures communicating total exhilaration (and conscious homage to The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). Hugo brought the bygone excitement of silent movies to children; Wonderstruck shows them the thrilling possibilities of museums in a way Night at the Museum doesn't even bother to.
Visually stunning, completely compelling, Wonderstruck demonstrates a mastery and maturity that proves that, yes, lightning can strike twice. (Historical fiction. 9 & up)
-Kirkus Review show less
He didn't have to return to the groundbreaking pictures-and-text format that stunned the children's-book world in 2007 and won him an unlikely—though entirely deserved—Caldecott medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Weighing in at about two pounds, the 500-plus page tome combined textual and visual storytelling in a way no one had quite seen before. In a world where the new becomes old in the blink of an eye, Selznick could have honorably rested on his laurels and returned to the standard 32-to-48–page picture-book format he has already mastered. He didn't have to try to top himself. But he has. If Hugo Cabret was a risky experiment that succeeded beyond Selznick and publisher Scholastic’s show more wildest dreams (well, maybe not Scholastic’s—they dream big), his follow-up, Wonderstruck, is a far riskier enterprise. In replicating the storytelling format of Hugo, Selznick begs comparisons that could easily find Wonderstruck wanting or just seem stale. Like its predecessor, this self-described "novel in words and pictures" opens with a cinematic, multi-page, wordless black-and-white sequence: Two wolves lope through a wooded landscape, the illustrator's "camera" zooming in to the eye of one till readers are lost in its pupil. The scene changes abruptly, to Gunflint Lake, Minn., in 1977. Prose describes how Ben Wilson, age 12, wakes from a nightmare about wolves. He's three months an orphan, living with his aunt and cousins after his mother's death in an automobile accident; he never knew his father. Then the scene cuts again, to Hoboken in 1927. A sequence of Selznick's now-trademark densely crosshatched black-and-white drawings introduces readers to a girl, clearly lonely, who lives in an attic room that looks out at New York City and that is filled with movie-star memorabilia and models—scads of them—of the skyscrapers of New York. Readers know that the two stories will converge, but Selznick keeps them guessing, cutting back and forth with expert precision. Both children leave their unhappy homes and head to New York City, Ben hoping to find his father and the girl also in search of family. The girl, readers learn, is deaf; her silent world is brilliantly evoked in wordless sequences, while Ben’s story unfolds in prose. Both stories are equally immersive and impeccably paced. The two threads come together at the American Museum of Natural History, Selznick's words and pictures communicating total exhilaration (and conscious homage to The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). Hugo brought the bygone excitement of silent movies to children; Wonderstruck shows them the thrilling possibilities of museums in a way Night at the Museum doesn't even bother to.
Visually stunning, completely compelling, Wonderstruck demonstrates a mastery and maturity that proves that, yes, lightning can strike twice. (Historical fiction. 9 & up)
-Kirkus Review show less
As magical, satisfying, beautiful, and deeply researched as his others (The Invention of Hugo Cabret; The Marvels), Wonderstruck is the story of two linked characters who don't know they're linked; in fact, they don't know the other exists. Ben's story is told in text, Rose's in pencil illustrations, until the two meet, and their combined story is told in text and pictures, seamlessly.
1977: Ben has grown up in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, with his mom, a librarian, but when she dies in a car accident, he is left with his aunt and uncle and cousins.
1927: Rose is a deaf girl whose parents keep her housebound in Hoboken, though she can see the New York skyline from her window. She sneaks out to silent movies, and then into the city when she show more sees an ad for a show her mother is in. Her mother greets her less than warmly, and it's her brother Walter who rescues her.
The pair of runaways meet up in New York; Ben has come seeking his father, based on small clues his mother left behind: a book called Wonderstruck, a bookmark from a shop called Kincaid's, and a handwritten note. New York in the '70s is dangerous and overwhelming, and Ben, who was born deaf in one ear, recently lost the hearing in his other due to a lightning strike. He is rescued, in a fashion, by a boy whose father works at the American Museum of Natural History, where Ben hides out for a few days (hat tip to The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). It is here, and then at Kincaid's, that Ben and Rose's path's cross, and they discover each other's identities.
Many themes and interests run throughout this book: lightning strikes and blackouts, Deaf culture, silent movies (and the transition to "talkies"), the AMNH and how its dioramas are made, the New York World's Fair and the Panorama, friendship and familial love. There is an extensive Acknowledgements section and a Selected Bibliography.
Quotes
What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go into your own cabinet? How would Ben curate his own life? And then, thinking about his museum box, and his house, and his books, and the secret room, he realized he'd already begun doing it. Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders. show less
1977: Ben has grown up in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, with his mom, a librarian, but when she dies in a car accident, he is left with his aunt and uncle and cousins.
1927: Rose is a deaf girl whose parents keep her housebound in Hoboken, though she can see the New York skyline from her window. She sneaks out to silent movies, and then into the city when she show more sees an ad for a show her mother is in. Her mother greets her less than warmly, and it's her brother Walter who rescues her.
The pair of runaways meet up in New York; Ben has come seeking his father, based on small clues his mother left behind: a book called Wonderstruck, a bookmark from a shop called Kincaid's, and a handwritten note. New York in the '70s is dangerous and overwhelming, and Ben, who was born deaf in one ear, recently lost the hearing in his other due to a lightning strike. He is rescued, in a fashion, by a boy whose father works at the American Museum of Natural History, where Ben hides out for a few days (hat tip to The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). It is here, and then at Kincaid's, that Ben and Rose's path's cross, and they discover each other's identities.
Many themes and interests run throughout this book: lightning strikes and blackouts, Deaf culture, silent movies (and the transition to "talkies"), the AMNH and how its dioramas are made, the New York World's Fair and the Panorama, friendship and familial love. There is an extensive Acknowledgements section and a Selected Bibliography.
Quotes
What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go into your own cabinet? How would Ben curate his own life? And then, thinking about his museum box, and his house, and his books, and the secret room, he realized he'd already begun doing it. Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders. show less
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ThingScore 100
The two stories come together at the climax of the book, which manages to incorporate an impressive array of heartfelt issues: everything from education for the deaf to friendship, love of collecting, conservation, memories and dioramas. As I turned the pages my heart was well and truly warmed in that way beloved of a certain type of American children's literature – earnest, life affirming, show more educational, and impossible to dislike. Reaching the end I leafed back through the 460 pages of Wonderstruck, admiring the pictures, all thoughts of my daughter now banished. Honestly, Brian, I do know how you can be bothered. show less
added by souloftherose
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Author Information
20+ Works 16,442 Members
Brian Selznick is a Caldecott-winning author and illustrator of children's books born July 14, 1966 in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and then worked for three years at Eeyore's Books for Children in Manhattan while working on his first book, The Houdini Box. Selznick received the 2008 show more Caldecott Medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He also won the Caldecott Honor for The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins in 2002. Additional awards include the Texas Bluebonnet Award, the Rhode Island Children's Book Award, and the Christopher Award. The Invention of Hugo Cabret will be made into a film by director Martin Scorsese to be released in 2011. Other titles by illustrated by Selznick include: Frindle, The Landry News, Lunch Money, Wingwalker, and Baby Monkey, Private Eye. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Has the adaptation
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Maravillas
- Original title
- Wonderstruck
- Alternate titles
- Black out
- Original publication date
- 2011
- People/Characters
- Ben Wilson [Wonderstruck]; Daniel Lobel; Rose Kincaid Lobel; Walter Kincaid; Elaine Wilson; Jamie [Wonderstruck]
- Important places
- Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, USA; American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA; New York, New York, USA; Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York, New York, USA; Kincaid Books (New York, New York, USA)
- Important events
- New York World's Fair (1964 | 1965)
- Related movies
- Wonderstruck (2017 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- "Sooner or later, the lightning comes to us all."
-Gregory Maguire
'A lion among men' - Dedication
- This book is dedicated to Maurice Sendak.
- First words
- Something hit Ben Wilson and he opened his eyes.
- Quotations
- He discovered a small blue book, its covers soft and creased with age. On the front, the title was stamped in black letters: WONDERSTRUCK. He flipped through the pages. The book was about the history of museums. On the ba... (show all)ck it said: Published by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York.
Ben remembered reading about curators in Wonderstruck, and thought about what it meant to curate your own life, as his dad had done here. What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go into yo... (show all)ur own cabinet? How would Ben curate his own life? And then, thinking about his museum box, and his house, and his books, and the secret room, he realized he’d already begun doing it. Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Jamie leaned against Ben, and Ben leaned against Rose, and the three of them sat together on the roof of the museum, looking at the stars.
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.6
- Canonical LCC
- PZ7.S4654
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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