The Invention of Hugo Cabret
By Brian Selznick
Scholastic, 544 pp., ages 9-12, $22.99
Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story From the Underground Railroad
Written by Ellen Levine
Illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Scholastic, 40 pp., ages 6-9, $16.99
First the Egg
By Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Roaring Brook, 32 pp., ages 2-6, $14.95
You can count on the librarians. Year after year, the American Library Association makes interesting, unpredictable award choices. In 1964 they handed the Caldecott Medal to Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," despite the outcry that it was too scary for children. The 1995 Caldecott Medal went to Eve Bunting's controversial "Smoky Night," a somber picture book about race riots in Los Angeles. But this year's Caldecott Medal winner may be the most stunning upset in the history of this award, intended for the year's best illustrated book. It has heretofore always gone to a picture book in the classic sense of that term.
"The Invention of Hugo Cabret," by Brian Selznick, is a more-than-500-page doorstopper, representing mutt fiction at its muttiest. The novel thrillingly blends elements of detective fiction, 19th-century orphan literature, story within a story, biography, graphic novel, comic strip, flip book, old black-and-white movie, and magic show. It is filled with the ticking of numerous machines, from automatons to movie projectors, from clocks to locks. It's a story about connections, dreams, loss, and art. It features one-eyed heroes, villains who smell "slightly of cabbages," and young pickpockets - and it all takes place in Paris.
Young Hugo Cabret has been twice orphaned, first by the death of his father, then the mysterious disappearance of his uncle, the timekeeper in the Paris train station. He has inherited his father's knack for fixing things, and his heartsick attention fixes on a writing automaton his father tried to repair: "Hugo had continued thinking about the note that it would eventually write. And the more he worked on the automaton, the more he came to believe something that he knew was completely crazy. Hugo felt sure that the note was going to answer all his questions and tell him what to do now that he was alone. The note was going to save his life."
In "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," dense passages of prose alternate with pages of nothing but black-and-white illustrations, many reeling steadily in like movie close-ups. At every turn, the book pulses at the edges of what young-reader's literature can be, and might yet become. It is a tale made of new technology in love with the old technologies that once seemed radical - train travel, space travel, the dreams writ large of motion pictures.
"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" is in many regards a rough-hewn book, perhaps deliberately so, as it celebrates earlier, less slick forms of entertainment art. One is won over to this novel and its imperfect young protagonists not in one fell swoop, but by steady, jerking increments, like the movements of the hands of an old clock. Selznick employs the old chestnuts - the fatherless boy "cried himself to sleep most nights." But there is great beauty in the book's simplicity as well as exciting chase scenes, narrow escapes, adventures, and surprises.
Two of the four Caldecott Honor Books have already been strongly praised in these pages: "The Wall," by Peter Sis, and Mo Willems's "Knuffle Bunny Too." That leaves "Henry's Freedom Box" and "First the Egg."
"Henry's Freedom Box," by Ellen Levine, succeeds better in concept than in execution. It's a marvelous idea for a picture book - the true story of Henry "Box" Brown, who escaped slavery by shipping himself north to Philadelphia. But while the book has a distinct historical interest, it never quite lives up to its promise in words or images. There's a flat familiarity to the way this fascinating story is told, and it's surprising that it was honored above so many more likely contenders.
"First the Egg," on the other hand, provides sheer delight to the younger set, and is brilliantly designed from start to finish. Nearly wordless, it leads us through three stages of natural transformations - for instance, egg, chick, hen - with cleverly designed cutouts that allow us to witness the changes by turning the pages and discovering what new images they reveal. Tadpole, newt, and frog; seed, plant, and flower; there's even a little meta-fiction about the making of a picture book. Laura Vaccaro Seeger's style balances beautifully between whimsy and fine art. Her pages are covered in washes of colors - lavender blues; soft golds, wines, and browns. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, I am beginning to believe, is the beginning and end of genius in picture books. Seeger's paintings radiate the joy of being, growing, and changing - which is what childhood, really, is all about. This might have been an easy book for an awards committee to overlook. How lucky that the wise librarians arrived at such a diverse list of Caldecott Honor Books this year, with offerings for toddlers to teenagers.
Liz Rosenberg teaches English and creative writing at Binghamton University and reviews young people's books here each month.
