A magical children's book

There is a new movie out called "Hugo", based on the Caldecott winning graphic novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick. The film is a departure for director Martin Scorsese and it seems to be his love letter to the world of cinema, since the book touches on that topic via one of the main characters, Papa Georges. It takes place in the early 1930s in a Paris train station, where orphaned Hugo Cabret keeps the clocks running and steals in order to survive. His late father had left him an automaton, an almost human machine that he is endeavoring to restore by stealing parts from a toymaker in the train station. The whole story is positively hypnotic and you can easily get lost in the pictures in the book. I have shown one of the pictures from the book above, Hugo with his automaton. It's a very unusual book, a sort of combination of graphic novel, flip book and picture book. I read the entire story in an hour or so but it's an absolutely wonderful story that I would recommend to both adults and children. The movie is extremely good as well and very close to the book. It's astonishing how well they recreated the scenery of the book in the movie. The first 5-10 minutes of the movie are wordless, as is the book. You have to figure out the story by the pictures and then you delve into the actual telling of what is going on. The book and movie also deal with a bit of film history that I only learned about not so long ago. One of the characters in the story turns out to be a very early filmmaker who was for all intents and purposes the great granddaddy of science fiction movies. Most of his films ended up being melted down to make the heels of the boots worn in WWI, sadly, so a good deal of his work has been lost to us, but there are still some surviving movies that are shown in the film "Hugo", along with some of his drawings. It's amazing what kind of magic they were able to create so long ago, and apparently automatons did exist back then as well. The one in the movie reveals a special secret that, if you know old film history, you'll get right away when you see it. Otherwise, you might not get it, but I'd strongly recommend going and seeing the movie, because it's just that good. It's Martin Scorsese's Christmas present to the movie going public, and it's wrapped up in a lovely package of a memorable movie that I hope wins plenty of awards next year. I also hope that it inspires kids to read Selznick's other books, including his newest one that I haven't even seen yet, "WonderStruck". "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" is one book that you simply cannot just listen to in audio format (although it is available as a Book on CD, but I can't imagine how they'd tell a story that is so dependent on the incredible artwork in the book). It must be sat down with on a sofa or a comfortable chair and savored, cover to cover, in hard copy format. Otherwise, you lose something in translation. So go out to your library or bookstore and go get this book and read it. It's a real gem!