The Invention of Hugo Cabret

For the film adaptation of the novel, see Hugo (film).

The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Author(s)	Brian Selznick
Cover artist	Brian Selznick
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	None
Genre(s)	Historical Fiction
Publisher	Scholastic Press
Publication date	January 30, 2007
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	533 pgs.
ISBN	978-0-439-81378-5
OCLC Number	67383288
LC Classification	PZ7.S4654 Inv 2007

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is an American historical fiction book written and illustrated by Brian Selznick and published by Scholastic Press. The hardcover edition was released on January 30, 2007, and the paperback edition was released on June 2, 2008. With 284 pictures between the book's 526 pages, the book depends equally on its pictures as it does on the actual words. Selznick himself has described the book as "not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things." The book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal, the first novel to do so, as the Caldecott Medal is for picture books.

The book's primary inspiration is the true story of turn-of-the-century French pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès, his surviving films, and his collection of mechanical, wind-up figures called automata. Selznick decided to add automata to the storyline after reading Edison's Eve by Gaby Wood, which tells the story of Edison's attempt to create a talking wind-up doll. Méliès actually had a set of automata, which were either sold or lost. At the end of his life Méliès was broke, even as his films were screening widely in the United States. He did work in a toy booth in a Paris railway station, hence the setting. Selznick drew Méliès's real door in the book.

Characters

• Hugo Cabret is a 12-year-old orphan who lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station where he works as a clock keeper. In order to survive, he steals food from local shops. Hugo's father died in a fire in a museum after one of the guards, not knowing he was there, locked the door trapping him inside as the building caught fire. Following this Hugo went to live with his uncle, Claude. When his uncle drowns in the Seine, Hugo is left alone. Hugo's goal is to fix the automaton that his father found. It had originally belonged to Georges Méliès.

• Isabelle Melies is an orphan who lives with Georges Méliès, her godfather. She accompanies Hugo on most of his adventures. Isabelle's parents died in a car crash. Her father used to be a camera man for Georges Méliès.

• Georges Méliès is an old man with a sour attitude. He runs a small toy booth in the Gare Montparnasse train station in Paris. As a young man he worked as a magician and later, an important film maker. However, after World War I, the films he produced lost popularity. He is Isabelle's godfather and Mama Jeanne's husband.

• Jeanne d'Alcy (Mama Jeanne) is Georges Méliès warm-hearted wife and Isabelle's godmother. She was an actress in all of her husband's movies.

• Etienne Pruchon, a friend of Isabelle and, later in the novel, Hugo, works in a cinema. He sometimes sneaks Hugo and Isabelle in so they can watch movies. He is also a student of René Tabard.

• René Tabard, Etienne's teacher, is a film historian who loves Georges Méliès's work.

• The Station Inspector, a bitter man who is in charge of the railway station where Hugo lives, is after Hugo because he has stolen from many of the train station's shops. While he seems cruel, he is not heartless, showing genuine concern for Hugo after the boy is nearly run over by a train.

Film adaptation

Main article: Hugo (film)

Martin Scorsese bought the screen rights to the book in 2007, and John Logan wrote the script. Scorsese began shooting the film in London at Shepperton Studios in June 2010. It is produced in 3D, and its theatrical release was on November 23, 2011 by distributor Paramount Pictures. Asa Butterfield plays the lead role of Hugo, with Chloë Grace Moretz as Isabelle, Sacha Baron Cohen as the station inspector and Ben Kingsley as Papa Georges. Jude Law, Richard Griffiths, Ray Winstone, Christopher Lee, Frances de la Tour and Helen McCrory also star. In 2012, the film won five Academy Awards.

Television series adaptation

Millimages plan to create a 2D-animated TV Series based on this book, Aired in Middle of 2012 in France 3, Same Animation of The Fantastic Flying Journey and The Way Things Work.

External links

• Official Site
• IMDb Movie Page

Awards
Preceded by Flotsam	Caldecott Medal recipient 2008	Succeeded by The House in the Night