Review: Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

Two reading recommendations for the (non) price of one this week! This one comes very specially from one of the young people The Reader Organisation works with, a 12 year old girl who has been enjoying Wonderstruck, the new book by Brian Selznick with her project worker.

Wonderstruck is phenomenal! I think it’s as good as The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick’s other book). The best thing about it is how the two main characters Rose and Ben meet across two different stories.

Nearly every page has ‘wonder’ on it. The wonder is when those two meet, and the panorama Rose made.

It’s interesting because there are two stories in one book. It’s about a boy called Ben who’s deaf and his mum dies, so he tries to find his dad. The other story is about Rose, who’s also deaf and she can’t talk. Her parents aren’t very nice and so she tries to find freedom.

One of the stories is told in pictures and the pictures are amazing. You know what’s going on in the pictures but you don’t know how to explain it. They make you think.

The story made me feel a bit sad and a bit happy. It was sad because the characters were alone and it made me happy when they all found each other.

I was wonderstruck when I read it!

Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick, Scholastic (2011).

You can get an insight into the story behind the story in an interview with Brian Selznick here.