Review: Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

1.      BIBLIOGRAPHY

Selznick, Brian. 2011. Wonderstruck. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 9780545027892

2.  PLOT SUMMARY

Wonderstruck tells 2 stories intertwined with each other, one through words and one through pictures. After the death of his mother, Ben is struck by lightning, rendering him completely deaf. He leaves his small town of Gunflint Lake, Minnesota and runs away to New York City in an attempt to find his father. While in New York City, he meets a young man named Jamie who lets Ben stay in the American Museum of Natural History. Rose, whose part of the story is told through illustrations, also runs away from her home to New York City to find her mother, a famous actress. Though her mother rejects her, she stays with her brother Walter, an employee in the American Museum of Natural History. Though the stories of Ben and Rose are told 50 years apart, they eventually combine in a surprising way.

3.    CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Wonderstruck explores the difficult themes: deafness, disabilities, death of loved ones, and the search for one’s identity. The majority of the text in Wonderstruck focuses on Ben’s experiences. Ben has dealt with many tragedies in his young life: the absence of a father, death of his mother, deafness in one ear, and finally total deafness due to a lightning strike. He gets teased very often by his cousin before he decides to go to New York in search of his father. Ben doesn’t know sign language and has a hard time reading lips, he communicates with his new friend Jamie by writing in a notebook. The reader can feel Ben’s frustration as he attempts to communicate with others and can also feel his fear when he doesn’t understand what people may be saying to him. Navigating around New York City is especially difficult for Ben, due to the massive numbers of people and traffic, as well as not knowing the layout of the city.

Most of the illustrated portions of Wonderstruck tell the story of Rose. Rose is deaf and is supposed to be learning how to read lips with a tutor, but runs away from her home to visit her mother, a famous actress. Rose’s mother rejects her and considers her an embarrassment, so Rose runs away to her brother Walter, who works in the museum at the Cabinet of Wonders, the room where Ben stays in the future. Walter finds a wonderful school for deaf children that Rose may attend, so she does not have to go back to being isolated. The action in Wonderstruck goes back and forth in time and between Gunflint Lake, Minnesota and various New York locations as the reader moves from the stories of Rose to Ben.

There are many specific connections between Rose and Ben, and all questions regarding their relationship and the significance of Gunflint Lake, wolves, the museum, and the Cabinet of Wonders are answered in the last few chapters when Rose and Ben’s stories intertwine. Both characters experience growth not only in their personal lives but also in their acceptance of and ability to handle their disability.

Selznick’s pencil illustrations are focused primarily on Rose’s story until Ben and Rose are finally together. There are close ups of Ben making the signs for “my friend” when referring to Jamie. Selznick also starts with a long distance drawing of wolves, and gradually over the next few pages draws close ups until the illustration is focused on the wolf’s glistening eye. This style of illustration is repeated several times, at both the beginning and end of Wonderstruck.

Selznick has included an extensive selected bibliography that contains sections on: deafness and deaf culture, museums and cabinets of wonder, 1927 clothing and objects, stage and screen, world’s fairs, lightening, Gunflint Lake, Hoboken, inspirations, documentary film, and finally websites he believes the reader will find useful.

4. AWARDS & REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Texas Bluebonnet Award Nominee 2012-2013

Positive review in Kirkus: “Visually stunning, completely compelling, Wonderstruck demonstrates a mastery and maturity that proves that, yes, lightning can strike twice.”

Positive review in Publisher’s Weekly: “It takes several hundred pages and a big chunk of exposition to connect these two strands, but they converge in an emotionally satisfying way. Selznick masterfully uses pencil and paper like a camera, starting a sequence with a wide shot and zooming in on details on successive pages.

5. CONNECTIONS

* Official website for Wonderstruck: http://www.wonderstruckthebook.com/

* Scholastic official website for Wonderstruck: http://www.scholastic.com/wonderstruck/

This website includes a tutorial for finger spelling your name and a link for star navigation.

* Other books written by Brian Selznick:

The Invention of Hugo Cabret. ISBN 9780439813785

The Houdini Box. ISBN 9781416968788

The Boy of a Thousand Faces. ISBN 9780064410809

The Robot King. ISBN 9780060244934