2008 Caldecott Winner

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" is written in two parts. the first part mainly tells you the story of an orphan boy, Hugo, who lives in a train station in Paris, how he got there, and the events that occurred there. The second part tells you of the major events that led to changing his life for a much better future.

After his father dies in a fire, he is left behind to live with is drunken uncle who never really takes care of him and doesn't let him go to school anymore. Instead, from his uncle he only learns to steal. Even though he doesn't agree with stealing, there isn't much he can do in order to survive. There at the train station he befriends Isabelle, the toymaker's god-daughter from whom Hugo is caught stealing from. To punish the boy, the toymaker takes away a little notebook his father had given him before his death. Hugo treasured it since he believe that through the drawings left in this notebook he would reveal a message left for him from his father. Through this notebook, he also thought he would be able to fix an automaton he thought his father had made. This story takes you to some twists and unexpected turns, when instead of finding out things about his father he instead finds out a secret about the toymaker. Together,him and Isabelle find out that the toymaker was indeed Georges Melies, a famous filmmaker and maker of the automaton. With this discovery, he is taken into Melies' home and the story ends with Hugo becoming a famous magician: Professor H. Alcofrisbas.

This book has some mesmerizing illustrations that add to the intensity and excitement of the events in the story. At first, I thought it was going to take me forever to finish it since it does have over 500 pages! I would recommend it to anyone and remember this: Don't judge a book by it's SIZE!