crompsy.com

For someone who's been on the "cynical adolescent" scene since I was about 9 it's a bit surprising I've never read this. If you want me to be honest about it, it's likely I ditched the semester we were supposed to be reading it in high school. Now that I've finally got to it, if you want to know the truth, It depressed holy hell out of me.

I had a wonderful time reading this to my two four year-olds. Selznick imaginatively intertwines early filmmaker Georges Méliès with his fictional character, Hugo Cabret, into a mystery-within-a-mystery book. <i>The Invention of Hugo Cabret</i> was layered enough to keep my kids and I gripped as we ripped through it's plot twists and flipped through it's beautiful illustrations. <br>Reading Hugo to my youngsters has familiarized them with the names of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Georges Méliès and provided me [happily] with a context to show some of these films to them.