2008 Caldecott

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Hugo Cabret, is a twelve- year old orphan that lived within the walls of a Paris train station. His father was a horologist ( a clock maker) and was working at an old museum taking care of their clocks. Hugo's father made a great discovery in the museum's attic. He found an old and broken automaton that was capable of writing or drawing. He decided to fix it and even gave Hugo a notebook filled with drawings that would help in fixing the automaton. One evening, while Hugo's father was working on the automaton at the museum, a fire broke out. He was trapped inside and perished in the fire. Hugo's only living relative, Uncle Claude, took in Hugo and lived within the walls of the train station. He was in charge of maintaining the station's clocks. He made Hugo quit school, made him work all day in the dark on the clocks, and made him sleep on the floor. Since their was very little food to eat, he taught Hugo how to steal, something Hugo hated to do. To top things off, Uncle Claude was an alcoholic. He took advantage of Hugo and would disappear for hours at a time. One day, he didn't return back. Hugo took the opportunity and decided to run away. He passed by the burned down museum and found the damaged automaton. He decided to fix it and returned back with it to the train station. His uncle never returned back and he did not want to be taken away to an orphanage, so he kept maintaining the clocks making it seem his uncle was still there. Hugo needed mechanical parts to fix the automaton and started to steal from the toy vendor at the train station. He got caught and the vendor, Georges Melies, took away Hugo's notebook and told him if he wanted it back he had to work for it. Georges goddaughter, Isabelle, found the notebook and gave it back to him. By then Hugo had fixed the automaton and used a heart shaped key Isabelle had (Georges had given the key to his wife and Isabelle had stolen the key from her godmother) to make it work. They both discover that Georges was a filmmaker and he was the actual creator of the automaton. In the end, Georges and his wife adopted Hugo and made him part of their family. Hugo became a magician by the name of Professor Alcofrisbas and created his own automaton. This is a wonderful story of mystery and that anything is possible if one believes. The book has wonderful illustrations and gives the reader a visual on how the characters looked, their expressions, and has great details on the inner works of an automaton. It also includes pictures that were taken in that time frame and it makes the story more realistic. The novel was an easy read and would highly recommend it to reluctant readers.