Bound To Stay Bound

Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2007 Brian Selznick has created a bit of an anomaly: though his book is a blend of visual and textual narrative, it isn’t a graphic novel, it is hundreds of pages longer than the average picture book, and the term “illustrated novel” doesn’t really address its particular nature. Specifically, unlike most of the books in any of the three aforementioned formats, the drawings and text in this novel work not in synchronous partnership but rather sequentially, with the story handed off from pages of text to pages of visual narrative, resulting in something that evokes an intricate and tension-filled silent movie. These alternating narrative media tell the story of twelve-year-old orphan Hugo, a boy who desperately misses his recently deceased father and who struggles to hold his life together after a new tragedy, the disappearance and likely death of his uncle, Hugo’s guardian. Hugo had been acting as an apprentice to his uncle, learning to set the clocks in a Paris train station; as long as he keeps the clocks set properly, suggesting his uncle’s continued presence, he can hide the fact that he is now living alone, stealing food to survive, and scavenging bits of machinery to pursue his dream: the restoration of a complex automaton that his father had found in a museum. At first, Hugo works from a notebook of diagrams that his father left behind, but after this is taken from him by an irate toymaker who catches Hugo stealing, he eventually discovers that he is talented enough to continue without it. The story also hints at broader mysteries with curious connections: the toymaker immediately recognizes the sketches of the automaton, a necklace worn by the toymaker’s granddaughter is the last item needed by Hugo to complete the restoration, and the drawing that the automaton eventually produces has a dramatic impact on all of the characters. Far from feeling coincidental or forced, however, the plot unfolds in satisfying layers, like a dramatic mystery film. And indeed, the careful pacing, heavy black frames that outline each page, and the sequential views that zoom in on a single image produce a remarkable cinematic effect. The nearly 300 pages of elegant pencil drawings, most combined in pages-long sequences, pick up where the text leaves off and sweep the reader along until the story is picked up again in words, sometimes twenty pages and several scenes later. The film influences are apparent in both the plot (the toymaker is the prolific filmmaker George Méliès, considered the father of science fiction movies) and in the visual images, several of which are photographed stills from Méliès’ movies. Avi’s elegant Silent Movie (BCCB 4/03) recently explored this alluring genre, and Selznick ably picks up the thread, offering an engaging novel and intriguing end matter (author’s note, film credits, and further reading list) that all but guarantee interest in the subject of silent film. It may well elicit some rather unexpected library requests for more information on early twentieth-century filmmaking; better yet, any library lucky enough to still have 16mm films in their collection will be perfectly equipped to offer young readers a rare glimpse into the quirkiness, beauty, and near magic of early moving pictures. Despite that sophisticated artistry, this remains a book firmly and appealingly intended for its young target audience. True, adults are likely to find it intriguing, and they will enjoy some of the subtleties that kids may miss (Remy Charlip posing as Georges Méliès, for example). However, the pacing, plot, and characters are all geared to young readers, who will find Hugo, the intrepid orphan racing against time and toward his goals, as compelling as the artistic tribute to cinema and forgotten filmic geniuses. Nor are they likely to mind the book’s multiple layers; instead, they’ll appreciate the ambition, embrace the complexities, and revel in the rare experience of an original and creative integration of art and text. - Copyright 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

School Library Journal - 03/01/2007 Gr 4-9-With characteristic intelligence, exquisite images, and a breathtaking design, Selznick shatters conventions related to the art of bookmaking in this magical mystery set in 1930s Paris. He employs wordless sequential pictures and distinct pages of text to let the cinematic story unfold, and the artwork, rendered in pencil and bordered in black, contains elements of a flip book, a graphic novel, and film. It opens with a small square depicting a full moon centered on a black spread. As readers flip the pages, the image grows and the moon recedes. A boy on the run slips through a grate to take refuge inside the walls of a train station-home for this orphaned, apprentice clock keeper. As Hugo seeks to accomplish his mission, his life intersects with a cantankerous toyshop owner and a feisty girl who won't be ignored. Each character possesses secrets and something of great value to the other. With deft foreshadowing, sensitively wrought characters, and heart-pounding suspense, the author engineers the elements of his complex plot: speeding trains, clocks, footsteps, dreams, and movies-especially those by Georges Melies, the French pioneer of science-fiction cinema. Movie stills are cleverly interspersed. Selznick's art ranges from evocative, shadowy spreads of Parisian streets to penetrating character close-ups. Leaving much to ponder about loss, time, family, and the creative impulse, the book closes with a waning moon, a diminishing square, and informative credits. This is a masterful narrative that readers can literally manipulate.-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. - Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 01/01/2007 Selznick’s “novel in words and pictures,” an intriguing mystery set in 1930s Paris about an orphan, a salvaged clockwork invention, and a celebrated filmmaker, resuscitates an anemic genre—the illustrated novel—and takes it to a whole new level. The result is somewhat similar to a graphic novel, but experiencing its mix of silvery pencil drawings and narrative interludes is ultimately more akin to watching a silent film. Indeed, movies and the wonder they inspire, “like seeing dreams in the middle of the day,” are central to the story, and Selznick expresses an obvious passion for cinema in ways both visual (successive pictures, set against black frames as if projected on a darkened screen, mimic slow zooms and dramatic cuts) and thematic (the convoluted plot involves director Georges Méliès, particularly his fanciful 1902 masterpiece, A Trip to the Moon.) This hybrid creation, which also includes movie stills and archival photographs, is surprising and often lovely, but the orphan’s story is overshadowed by the book’s artistic and historical concerns (the heady extent of which are revealed in concluding notes about Selznick’s inspirations, from the Lumière brothers to François Truffaut). Nonetheless, bookmaking this ambitious demands and deserves attention—which it will surely receive from children attracted by a novel in which a complex narrative is equally advanced by things both read and seen. - Copyright 2007 Booklist.