Summary
The written part of the story takes place in the 1970s. The main character, Ben, is deaf in one ear, recently lost his mother to an accident, and now living with his aunt and uncle. He has no idea of his father's identity. He leaves for New York City in a search for answers to secrets that his mom kept from him. Hopefully, he will find his father.
In the illustrated story, Rose, lives in New Jersey in the 1920s. She can see New York City from her window. She is fixated on an actress and sneaks from her bedroom window one night to see her in a silent movie film.
Though the tales are different, they are intertwined and come together to bring an unexpected conclusion to both of the characters searches.
Selznick, B. (2011). Wonderstruck. New York: Scholastic Press.
My Impression
Beautiful, beautiful story. I loved how the pictures told one story, the text told another story which both came together at the end. Both characters left their lives looking for something. This story may be too complex for younger readers, but upper elementary and middle schoolers will enjoy it. The size is daunting, but when they see the number of illustrations, it will be an easy sell. This is one of my favorite books to read this semester.
Reviews
With Wonderstruck’s opening wordless sequence of an approaching wolf, readers might think they’ve embarked upon a Gary Paulsen novel, but this is a story not of wilderness adventure but of two young people running—to New York City—for their lives. The pictures (pencil, double-page spread, wordless) follow a young girl, Rose, living in material comfort but also emotional distress in 1927 Hoboken; the text is set in 1977 in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters region, where a boy, Ben, struggles with the death of his mother and the loss of his hearing. Yes, Rose and Ben eventually meet, as do the text and pictures, but both stories are encumbered by the conclusion of the book, which, in resolving many themes and mysteries, dictates too much of what has gone before—it feels as if the narrative was composed backward rather than arising organically from its beginnings. For example, Rose’s childhood hobby of constructing model buildings from the pages of hated books doesn’t seem to follow from anything, but it does give her an adult career at New York’s Museum of Natural History, where Ben also finds himself after several similarly belabored circumstances. Still, there is much technical brilliance here, both in the segues between text and pictures and between the pictures themselves, as in a scene where Rose, locked in a room, seems to be contemplating the many photographs on a wall, but a page turn reveals that Rose has actually spotted a window—and escapes. While Ben’s story suffers from an excess of telling rather than showing, he (Rose, too) is openhearted and easy to love. The intricate puzzle-solving of the plot gets a generous and welcome shot of straightforward emotion when Ben is given an unabashedly romantic friendship with another boy, Jamie, with whom he experiences the wonders of the museum in secret and at night, a nod to E. L. Konigsburg that Selznick acknowledges in an informative closing note.
Sutton, R. (2011, September 13). Review of wonderstruck. The Horn Book, Retrieved from http://www.hbook.com/2011/09/choosing-books/review-of-the-week/review-of-wonderstruck/
Suggestions for Use in Library -
- Graphic novel book talk
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