Issue link: https://h2.relevantize.com/i/468109
/ . / B O O K S ➻ % . , % + A G E S & , * The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick ➸ I don't know how to do this one. It's about a little boy who uses his dad's notebook to try to make this machine called an automaton and there's a man across the street who makes toys, and the two things are somehow connected. You just have to read it. I'm not telling you more. The art is AMAZ- ING. It even won the Caldecott medal. It makes me feel like I'm actually there. And P.S. It's not really a comic book. –Phoebe Parent note: Wowwowwow- wowwow. This book is hum- bling and transporting and outrageously beautiful. I want to marry this book. Phoebe is right: It's not really a comic book. It's genre-defying. It's like the most beautiful flip-book with words that you've ever seen. (And therefore not sur- prising that it was turned into an Oscar-winning film directed by Martin Scorsese.) The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Reiner ➸ This is a mysterious, strange, creepy book about a little boy named Walker Bean whose father is rich and whose grandfather is sick. His grandfather would tell him stories about being at sea, stories from when he was little, and stories about these sisters who look weird—like lobster crab-creatures, in my opinion. The reason his grandfather is sick is because he once looked at a stolen, enchanted skull—if you look at it, you get horri- bly sick and cursed. Walker's grandfather tells him to go out to sea to return the skull to its owners, but then…I'm not tell- ing you what happens next. It's exciting, and a little sad. –Phoebe Flight Explorer Vol . 1 edited by Kazu Kibuishi ➸ There are a bunch of diZerent stories in here. There's a story by Kazu Kib..ish..umm, a section from a book he wrote called Copper. He's the guy who wrote Amulet. One of my favorite stories in here is called "Perfect Cat." It's about an Egyptian cat who gets jealous of another cat her owner gets, and it's a little bit funny because it includes a dung beetle. If you like Amulet and New Brighton Archeo- logical Society you'll like this. –Phoebe 65 68 62 63 64 66 67 Dominic by William Steig ➸ The lesson here: Life can be hard, but there's a crazy amount of beauty in it, too. This is a chapter book, 146 pages of pure joy. Dominic is a "lively one," a dog who sets out on his own – with a righteous ensemble of hats and his trusty piccolo — to see the world. Along the way, he runs into a roving band of bad guys, known as the Doomsday Gang. They try to lure Dominic over to the dark side. This gang, it turns out, has been stirring up a lot of bad juju out in the larger animal world, and Domi- nic sets out to make things right. Includes an unbelievably beautiful moonlight serenade of mice carrying Japanese lanterns. That's right. Favor- ite little moment: "One could not be happy among the good ones unless one fought the bad ones." –Andy Smile by Raina Telgemeir ➸ This is a true story about a girl named Raina who has an overbite and a little bit of gum damage and she knocks her permanent two front teeth out. She goes through a lot of trouble at the dentist and her friends make fun of her. It takes place a long time ago, when the author was little. In the book, she's in sixth grade. Boys might like this, but it de- pends on their style. On a scale of 1 to 10: 10. –Phoebe Abby rating: 11 (And, yes, that's The Far Side Gallery 1 by Gary Larson ➸ These comics are, well, each picture is its own comic. They're not stories. They're jokes. I understand most of them, but not all. If I have a question, I ask my parents, but sometimes they can't even figure it out. But the other ones are really funny. –Phoebe Parent's note: Phoebe dis- covered this on the book shelf in my childhood bedroom in the house where my parents still live. I didn't think she'd be into it. But she now has three volumes and reads them incessantly and is, as they say, DEEP in the s@&t. out of 10. As Abby says, "I love it because I'm lucky not to have that tooth accident." This com- ing from someone who had two molars yanked only a few days before this was reveiwed.) Parent note: We realized before it was too late (Abby had already devoured the book 3 times) that there was a page or two of teen talk (body changes, boy crazy girls, etc) that might have been confusing and maybe a tad inappropriate for a seven-year-old. So just be warned. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick ➸ If you liked #64 you'll like this book. I can't really explain it, because this author makes his books really complicated, but it's about a deaf boy and a deaf girl. It makes you think about how hard it must be to be deaf. It's half pictures and half words; the girl's story is all pictures and the boy's story is all words. The writer puts so much feeling into his stories. And there's a surprise at the end, which is always good. On a scale of 1 to 10? 9. –Phoebe Parent note: Why not a 10? Because Phoebe said it wasn't "quite as good" as Hugo Cabret. 18