Wonderstruck (Schneider Family Book Award - Middle School Winner) (originale 2011; edizione 2011)

Ben and Rose both dream of a different and better life. Ben, in 1977, longs for his father he’s never known, especially after his mother dies in a car accident. Rose, in 1927, dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she’s pasted into a scrapbook. Both set off for journeys in New York, desperate to find what they are missing. Told in dual perspectives - Ben’s story in words and Rose’s story in pictures, the two weave back and forth in symmetry before finding the missing link.

With half the story told in beautiful black and white illustrations and the other in traditional typed words, this novel is a very quick read - I myself read it over the course of an afternoon.

The illustrations of the novel were beautiful and you really had to stop and take a look at all the details. The pages were showing the life of someone who is Deaf, and because of this, I thought, there was so much detail.

This book is amazing and I love it so much. This has been on my TBR list for quite some time. And, as usual with books that continuously make it through multiple purges, I can’t believe I waited as long as I did to read it. It’s such an amazing book that I can see myself recommending it over and over again. ( )

I liked the beginning of the book; it set up a sense of expectation and suspense over who the boy's father was and why was he never around, as well as suspense over who the girl was and why was she obsessed with the actress she avidly read about. I strongly sympathized with the boy's plight.
Unfortunately, the answers to these questions were a great letdown. The boy's mother was set up by the author to be an admirable woman, but it turned out she single-handedly placed her son in all his orphaned misery, and the author expects every character involved in the tragedy to continue to overlook that and admire her. I as a reader feel very confused. And the many suspenseful questions in the girl's story turned out to be pretty bland. At the end of the book I think I got two messages the author was trying to send: 1) It's good for deaf people to go to school, learn sign language and flourish in the deaf culture. 2) The Panorama exhibit is awesome. Those two messages really stood out because I feel the author forced these two details into the story arc just for the sake of giving the PSA. The plot development would have been pretty much the same with or without them. Another PSA he was trying to send was the wolf exhibit in Museum of Natural History is awesome. I am a bit more sold on this message than the other two (although still not a fan), because it's woven into the story from the very beginning, whereas the other two were just brutally inserted. ( )

Let's be honest: If not for the fact that I work in the Children's Department of the local library, I would have never picked up a copy of Brian Selznick's Wonderstruck. I would have not paid $16 dollars - that's $14 off cover price - for this insanely thick children's book. I may not have even beaten myself over the fact that it took me four days to read rather than the one night/one morning time span it should've taken me (my eyes do get tired). However, I can't say I didn't enjoy the book. Hell, it might be a brick but it's still a damn good book.

The novel follows to characters. Ben, a partially deaf boy who becomes fully deaf after an accident during an electrical storm and recently suffered the loss of his mother after a car accident; and, Rose, a young deaf girl who dreams of escaping her father's house in order to find a place in the world. The two stories are set fifty years apart - Ben's taking place in the 70's while Rose lives in the 20's.

Having never read anything by Selznick before - and if the price of this book is any reflection, it'll take another mandatory reading to get me to pick up anything by him - I don't know much about his style. Whether or not The Invention of the Hugo Cabret follows the similar structure is beyond me. See Ben's story is told through conventional storytelling - you know, with words - while Rose's story takes a more primal spin - with pictures.

It's a sweet story of two kids looking for their place in the world with a mixture of pop culture, Deaf culture, arts, history, and nature. The art work is beautiful and its detail is breath taking. Selznick has a way to keep his readers captivated and wanting more, while dropping subtle clues as it leads you down the path. ( )

Read this one back in 4th grade, very proud of myself. ( )

I read this because I want to see the film next week, and initially I was intimidated by the 600 pages. But don't be--I read this in a matter of hours, as Selznick deftly uses white space, and half the story is told through illustration. My heart broke a handful of times as I read this, but that could be because deaf culture has been in my orbit since high school and is now part of my family. I loved it. ( )