Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
My kids and I agreed that it isn’t as good as Hugo though it is nearly twice as thick. This doesn’t mean it is a bad book, however. In fact the story was a very good one. I was just not happy with the balance between illustration and text this time around. It’s not my place to judge but WonderStruck seemed to be trying too hard to mirror the successful aesthetic of Hugo. If the publication date were stripped from both books, I would have thought Wonderstruck was written before Hugo. The experiment with form and then honing the technique.
Perhaps the most exciting results of reading both Selznick’s books is the curiosity they inspired in me and my boys about the World’s Fair, the American Museum of Natural History, the Queens Art Museum (and Science Museum) and George Melies.
Vincent Young 
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