Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

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A boy named Ben longs for the father he has never known. A girl named Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother's room, and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing.

I was torn between turning the 637 pages of Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick as fast as I could to find out what happens next and wanting to linger over the marvelous illustrations. Wonderstruck is a book meant to be experienced over and over again, at the very least so that one can pore over every intricate detail of the artwork.

I love the way the alternating stories are told: one purely in image and one purely in prose until they merge towards the end. I kept trying to figure out how the two individual narratives set in different eras would eventually come together to form one story but Selznick successfully kept me in delighted suspense throughout the novel. Selznick is undoubtedly a unique alchemist of word and image but Wonderstruck also has its poignant substance.

The two protagonists, Ben and Rose, are lonely and in search of belonging to some place or to someone. In Ben’s case (1977), his beloved mother just died and he is lost without her. In Rose’s case (1927), she idolizes a famous actress, Lillian Mayhew, and keeps a scrapbook of her life. Their situations keep them isolated, even from well-meaning family members. Each decides to run away: Ben, to find the father he never met and Rose, to see Lillian Mayhew. Their journeys take them to that wonderland for kids of all ages: New York, and in a place that sets imaginations afire: The American Museum of Natural History.

As to what happens next, this is the only hint I’m going to give: In the afterword Selznick acknowledges that he was very much inspired by E.L. Konigsburg’s The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and sprinkled references throughout Wonderstruck, daring the reader to find them. (Another excuse to reread :) )

"Ben remembered reading about curators...and thought about what it meant to curate your own life... What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go into your own cabinet? How would Ben curate his own life? And then, thinking about his museum box, and his house, and his books, and the secret room, he realized he'd already begun doing it. Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders."

If you’ve ever visited the American Museum of Natural History (or if you haven’t, here’s your chance!), if you love illustrated novels, if you just want to be entertained by a biblio cabinet of wonders – read Wonderstruck!

Wonderstruck website