Author: Brian Selznick
Illustrator: Brian Selznick
© Date: 2011
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages: 629
Chapters: No, but it is divided into parts
Illustrations: Yes, many page layouts are just illustrations
Publisher Recommended Age: 9 years and up
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No, but the acknowledgments include information on inspirations and the history, a bibliography is also included
Summary from Book: Playing with the for he created in his trailblazing debut novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick once again sails into uncharted territory and takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey.
Ben and Rose secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother’s room and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing.
Set fifty years apart, these tow independent stories—Ben’s told in words, Rose’s in pictures—weave back and forth with mesmerizing symmetry. How they unfold and ultimately intertwine will surprise you, challenge you, and leave you breathless with wonder. Rich, complex, affecting, and beautiful—with over 460 pages of original artwork—Wonderstruck is a stunning achievement from a uniquely gifted artist and visionary.
Note: This review is done from memory. I originally read this awhile ago.
Page Pig Thoughts: This one was hard to put down. I would get into the story in pictures, so I would read the text part to get back to the pictures. But then I would want to know what would happen in the text story, so I would flip through the pictures. And so on and so on. The individual stories were engaging, but the way they wove together at the end was amazing.
I appreciated how this one gets you to thinking about the people who put together museum collections and create some of the items on display. The nods to The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler [review] were also interesting to find.
Use caution with younger or sensitive readers, loss of a parent/hearing could be emotionally charged. Also, running away from home should be considered.
Family Unit:
- Ben, 12 years old, lives with his aunt, uncle, female cousin, and male cousin.
- Rose lives with her father originally.
Conflict/Social Issues:
- Ben and Rose learn to navigate the world without being able to hear anyone.
- Ben and Rose don’t feel like they entirely fit in at home.
- Ben is out of money, out of clues for how to find his father, and a long way from home.
- Jamie is reluctant to tell his father about his new friend, Ben, so he won’t get in trouble and lose his new friend.
Positive Items:
- Ben and Rose find each other.
- Ben becomes friends with Jamie and they navigate what being a good friend is about.
Items of Interest:
- Frequently since his mother’s death, Ben has nightmares about wolves. He wakes up shaking/distressed.
- Ben shares a room with his cousin, Robby. Robby has different interests than Ben and doesn’t want to share his room anymore.
- Ben’s mother recently died in a car accident. He never knew his father. His mother never talked about his father. The only time that Ben asked his mother about his father, she started to tear up, so he never asked again.
- Ben walks into his old house to find is older cousin, Janet, wearing his mother’s clothes and smoking cigarettes like his mother.
- When Ben finds a clue to who is father is, he finds himself running away from Minnesota to New York City to look for him.
- Ben was born deaf in one ear. During a storm, he was making a call on a landline phone when the house is struck by lightning. Ben wakes up in a hospital and discovers that he can’t hear at all. Doctors are not sure if he will get his hearing back.
- Ben has all of his money stolen when he was counting money out to buy a hot dog.
- Ben finds all of his clues to his father to be dead ends and winds up at the American Museum of Natural History.
- Rose closely follows the story of a famous actress. She runs away from her New Jersey home to New York City to see the actress. The actress happens to be her mother. The actress gets mad at Rose and says that it isn’t safe for a deaf girl to be in the city.
- Rose runs away to the American Museum of Natural History.
- Rose’s brother finds her and takes her into his home. She then attends a school with other deaf children and starts thriving.
- Ben’s father had a bad heart and died at a young age.