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By Lisa Thalhimer

Don’t Be Fooled by the Size of This “Invention”
Drawings Propel the Action through 550 Pages

The Association for Library Service to Children presents the Randolph Caldecott Medal annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book.
This year’s coveted prize goes to Brian Selznick for his groundbreaking book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic).
“Hugo Cabret” looks like a novel. It is 550 pages and 3 inches thick. Don’t be fooled. Selznick’s pencil drawings sprawl across 350 pages. The text often consists of one centered paragraph per page.
This visually pleasing format pulls the reader in from the first intriguing pictures to the last. The illustrations hold as much weight as the text, hurrying the action along in ways that words cannot always do.
Selznick’s introduction is signed, “Professor H. Alcofrisbas.” It sets the stage for the adventure that follows.
The story I am about to share with you takes place in 1931, under the roofs of Paris. Here you will meet a boy named Hugo Cabret, who once, long ago, discovered a mysterious drawing that changed his life forever.
But before you turn the page, I want you to picture yourself sitting in darkness, like the beginning of a movie. On screen, the sun will soon rise, and you will find yourself zooming toward a train station in the middle of the city. You will rush through the doors into a crowded lobby. You will eventually spot a boy amid the crowd, and he will start to move through the train station. Follow him, because this is Hugo Cabret. His head is full of secrets, and he’s waiting for his story to begin.
It is no accident that Selznick has us thinking about movies from the introduction. The illustrations that follow have the feel of an old film. Beginning with a view of the moon, the frame rockets us into a night scene of the Paris rooftops. Closer and closer we zoom — into the train station and its hurrying crowds.
We spot Hugo in the throng and turn the pages quickly in order to follow him. Up the stairs we go, surprised at the extreme close-up of his face. With the flip of a few pages, we follow Hugo through an empty hallway where we watch the boy disappear into an iron grate on the side of a wall.
Hugo is living alone in the station after his father’s tragic death, followed by his uncle’s disappearance. His only passion is repairing the automaton his father was working on when he died. He has no money for parts, so steals them from a toy store in the station. The owner catches him. Now the story takes a twist, leading Hugo to an uneasy friendship with the toymaker’s godchild, Isabelle. Together, Hugo and Isabelle solve the mystery of the toymaker’s past as renowned filmmaker Georges Méliès. (Ages 9–12)

The ALSC also presents Caldecott Honor awards to several books each year. “Henry’s Freedom Box,” illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Ellen Levine, and “First the Egg” by Laura Vaccaro Seeger both received awards, as did Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity (Hyperion) by Mo Willems. Willems must feel a bit of déjà vu, as his “Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale” won the same award in 2005.
“Knuffle Bunny Too” begins with Trixie and her father walking through their Brooklyn neighborhood to Trixie’s school. Willems’s creative blend of cartoon figures and a photographic background is charming. Trixie chatters to her father about how she can’t wait to share her one-of-a-kind Knuffle Bunny in today’s Show-and-Tell.
But when Trixie enters the classroom, she is devastated to see that Sonja has brought a Knuffle Bunny as well.
Suddenly, Trixie’s one-of-a-kind Knuffle Bunny wasn’t so one-of-a-kind anymore.
Trixie and Sonja squabble all day until the teacher finally takes the bunnies away from them, only to be returned at the end of the school day.
Mothers and fathers will sympathize with Trixie’s parents when Trixie realizes at 2:30 a.m. that the animal she has been trying to sleep with is not her Knuffle Bunny. (Ages 4–7)

A Caldecott Honor award also was presented to a thought-provoking picture book for older children. Peter Sis’ The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is an autobiographical look at his childhood in Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia.
Most of Sis’ illustrations include tiny black, white and red drawings filling the page. The red is, of course, intentional and highly effective. One page early in the book contains small squares illustrating aspects of young Peter’s life set against the social and political upheaval.
The Communists Take Control of Schools. (Here we see Peter waving goodbye to his parents as he heads for school.)
Russian-language classes – Compulsory. (Here a teacher points to a red star on the chalkboard.)
Joining the Young Pioneers, the Communist Youth Movement – Compulsory. (Here an adult leader with a pig’s snout shows red scarves to the children.)
Political indoctrination – Compulsory. (Here Peter marches with his peers. They all wear red scarves. Peter holds a drawing of a red star, but we note that there is blue in the picture as well.)
The only highly colored illustration in the book is a vivid two-page spread highlighting the Beatles, Allen Ginsberg, art, travel, poetry, film, theater and the Harlem Globetrotters: all things Peter and his contemporaries yearned for. Readers understand Sis’ struggle to survive in an atmosphere of repression, mistrust and violence.
“The Wall” is an important piece of children’s literature. Its sobering message and sophisticated delivery is appealing to both adult and child. (Ages 10 and up)

Lisa welcomes your comments about these books or any other children’s books you enjoy. Her e-mail is booklustr@aol.com.

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