He could pull rabbits from hats, make elephants disappear, and do a thousand card tricks. And it may even encourage kids to learn more about Houdini. But it's a pleasant enough story, and the boy's obsession is both amusing and will be recognizable to young readers. The text, however, is merely so-so, and requires a suspension of disbelief that not every reader will be willing to make - that Houdini's wife would give a child she'd never met, who had no relationship with her husband, his box of secrets, and that the child would so easily drop his dreams. Selznick is truly one of our most brilliant and clever illustrators. Done in b&w crosshatching, they are rich, detailed, and occasionally impart emotional content not in the text. Selznick is the genius behind The Invention of Hugo Cabret: A Novel in Words and Pictures.
The strength of this reissue of Brian Selznick's first book (with new notes about Houdini, magic, and the creation of the book) is the illustrations.
0 kommentar(er)
