Asides

Allure is different from charm and alluring is different from charming. "The Invention of Hugo Cabret", Brian Selznick's 2007 page young adults book is both charming and alluring. And it is 544 pages long. Don't panic, the text is probably less than 100 pages and is interspersed throughout with 100's of wonderful hand drawn images that play out like a film storyboard. In fact "reading" this book is like watching a movie, with establishing shots, perspectives, close-ups and anticipatory revelations.

From Publishers Weekly (amended)
Twelve-year-old orphan Hugo lives in the walls of a Paris train station in the 30's, where he tends to the clocks and steals what he needs to survive. Hugo's recently deceased father, a clockmaker, worked in a museum where he discovered an automaton: a human-like figure seated at a desk, pen in hand, as if ready to deliver a message. After his father showed Hugo the robot, the boy became just as obsessed with getting the automaton to function as his father had been, and the man gave his son one of the notebooks he used to record the automaton's inner workings. The plot grows as intricate as the robot's gears and mechanisms.

Movie buffs are in for a pleasant surprise as the story evolves to include one of the most famous early filmmakers. Those who love illustration will not be disappointed, and I guarantee those with children will have a wonderful time sharing this alluring and charming destined to be classic.

Oh, and Variety reports that Warner Bros. and Graham King's Initial Entertainment have picked up the novel as a potential directing vehicle for Martin Scorsese.