Books Worth Forcing Upon Your Children: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

This is the book from which the movie Hugo is based and, to be honest, I actually brought home the book so that my kids would be interested in seeing the movie.  That doesn't seem quite right does it?  While standing at the Redbox I would suggest Hugo over and over, probably out of fear that we might come home with The Toothfairy 2.  My attempts failed enough times that I decided to change strategy.  It did work, after I forced my kids to listen to the book.  Turns out, they didn't want to read the book either.

(What is up with that Scholastic?  My kids love movies and books and yet, this pair held no appeal for either of them on the front end.  That is why I am taking it to the blog.  Just doing my small part to help out your marketing team.  I know, the 10 people who actually read my blog are going to have a huge impact.  But seriously, this is a great book and kids should be flocking.)

Maybe the fact that the book is 4" thick is a deterrent for kids.  I don't know why.  I mean, in our video game saturated culture I can't imagine a kid being intimidated by a mere 526 pages.  What you can't tell at first glance is that many of those pages contain pictures that tell the tale as brilliantly as words.  Oh, but the words are brilliant too.  Once the whining stopped after I explained that we would be reading this book at bedtime or they could go straight to bed without our delicious evening snuggle, it became one of those books we could hardly put down.  "One more chapter," became the chorus, which is music to any storyteller's ears.

What is it that makes this book so intriguing?  Well, it begins with the captivating premise that a twelve year old boy is living alone in a train station.  (Every kid loves a story about other kids making it on their own.  That's why we loved The Boxcar Children growing up.)  You have to keep reading to find out how he came to be alone and why he feels he must keep this a secret.  Then a seemingly heartless old man takes something from him and he must try to get it back.  In the process, he discovers that the old man has a mystery of his own and is somehow connected to his late father through a mechanical man with a secret message.

We ended up truly enjoying this book and as soon as we finished we rented the movie at Redbox for family movie night.  Warning--the movie is long like the book and I'm told that it's better in 3D, but we enjoyed watching how the mystery unfolds while the characters came to life on screen.