Wonderstruck

#774
Title: Wonderstruck
Author: Brian Selznick
Publisher: Scholastic
Year: 2011
640 pages

What a lovely, engaging book! I found myself clustering my associations as I read ("The Gray Wolf Throne--also has ambiguous wolf visions"; "Seeing Voices/Hands of My Father--deaf education"; "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder/Cornell boxes?"), not least of which was, of course, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler.

The book functions much like a dream despite its realism, relying on both determinism and over-determination to lead Ben to a virtually inevitable encounter. The big reveal is wonderfully accomplished through the use of the story's media. Even if you are pretty sure what's going on, the way the information is shared with the reader is very clever [highlight to read]: We switch from Ben's sentences to Rose's images, which identifies the old woman at the wolf diorama as Rose, whom we have known thus far only in 1927.

As with The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the illustrations are reminiscent of Garth Williams:


Williams


Selznick


One minor plot problem [highlight to read]: Jaime follows Ben, but doesn't know he's with Rose? This seems unlikely.