Book Report on "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Ammon

I just read The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. This book was...I can't explain it. It was awesome. It was the best book I've read in months.

It starts out with a kid, Hugo. His father finds a mechanical man called an automaton. And then one night when he was in a museum fixing the automaton, the guard accidentally locked the doors and a fire started. Everything was burned up and Hugo was left with his uncle. When the uncle went to buy food and drinks, he went to the store and never came back. Hugo did his uncle's job for him and tried to fix the automaton himself.

Hugo gets caught stealing parts from an old man's toy shop. Hugo has to work for a few weeks to pay him back. Later he learns that the old man was the one who built the automaton. He is the long-lost great movie maker, Georges Melies. Hugo helps him remember who he is and the old man starts making movies again.

The coolest thing about this book is that there are more pictures than words. The pictures tell part of the story and then the words take over to help tell the story.

In the end, Georges Melies takes Hugo as his son, and Hugo becomes a magician. And the mechanical man does something very special at the end of the book. Here's two clues: 1) one hundred and fifty-eight and 2) twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine. You'll have to read the book to find out what it is.

You can buy this book at Borders for $22.99. The library has a copy, too, but you'll want to buy it so you can read it over and over again and see the cool pictures.

Updates! Updates!

We've keep forgetting to update this blog. So here's a little update about what we've accomplished the last few months.

WACKY HALLOWEEN (October 2008)

We don't have much to share about October except the fun we had getting ready for Halloween. We decorated cookies, picked out Halloween costumes, and talked about the history of the holiday. Here Halloween is an official state holiday, so we took the day off of school.

A few days before Halloween we received a package from Grandma P. She had sent all sorts of goodies and fun. Our favorites were these glasses.




VOLCANOES (November 2008)

Ben got a Volcano kit for his birthday, so we finally got around to putting it together in November. He painted it, and together we helped it erupt! Ammon also took some time to learn a bit more about volcanoes (and rocks in general) and earned his Geologist Activity Badge for cub scouts. Here's Ben painting the volcano and a few shots of it erupting.






BASKETBALL (October-December 2008)

Ben and Daniel played basketball with the Boys and Girls Club. They had a great time learning and playing.

Ben received a trophy! (His team was the Cougars.)


Daniel received some cool wrist bands with a Cardinals logo on them! (His team was the Cardinals.)


Here's Ben racing down the court during his last game.


Here's Daniel with the ball during his last game.



THE SCRATCH PATCH (December 2008)

Grandma P. came to visit and took us to the Scratch Patch. It is a cool store that has over 2 tons of polished rocks ON THE FLOOR that you can go and play in. She bought each of us a small sack and we got to choose which rocks we wanted to take home.

Ammon and Mom spent lots of time inspecting the rocks. There were so many cool ones. Ammon's favorite were the Tiger Eye rocks.


Ben made rock angels. His favorite rocks were the spotted ones (he called them the rocks with the dots on them).


Daniel made neat piles of the ones he liked the best. He couldn't fit them all in his bag, so he had to choose only a few of his favorite.


Lizzie buried her doll in the rocks. When we left, her bag was full of only pink rocks!


Grace wasn't sure what to do in the rocks. Eventually she decided to eat them (not pictured).


THE GREAT BOOK PAGE-A-THON (December 2008)

You can read more about this in our last post, but we wanted you to know that WE MADE OUR GOAL a few days before the end of the year. Yes, folks! Together our family read 2009 pages in December! We had a pizza party and also meant to make an ice cream cake roll but that hasn't happened yet.