Chapter Four: Wonderstruck

It doesn't seem quite right to say that I just finished reading Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick's newest work, because about half of this story is conveyed exclusively in beautiful, full-page drawings. (Because of this, despite its huge size, it doesn't take very long to take in the entire work.)  Unlike a comic book or a picture book, where words accompany and explain the illustrations, in the pictorial parts of Wonderstruck you have to depend on the pictures alone to figure out what's happening.  As much as I love words, I was intrigued by the creation of a wordless narrative.  I liked seeing what was happening, rather than being told it.  This is not to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the part of the story told in words: I did.  Selznick is as good at spinning a verbal narrative as he is a pictorial one, and both stories are compelling, to say the least, as each follows a different child, each embarked on a quest.  Perhaps my favorite aspect of this work is how the two stories, one told in words and the other in pictures, reflect off each other through a series of almost-parallels and similarities, entwining more and more closely together as the work progresses.  This truly touching story--I almost started crying while reading it at the gym!--is definitely worth a dedicated perusal.