Wonderstruck is the story of Ben, a boy longing for a father he has never known, and Rose, a girl longing for a mother who was never around. Their lives are chronicled in words (Ben) and images (Rose). I absolutely refuse to give away the story or the ending of the book other than to warn you to enjoy the artwork and the wonderful twists.
Wonderstruck, and Selznick's other works, are appropriate for ALL ages.
Teaching Ideas
Using the Book
As with Hugo, Wonderstruck has an excellent website to use while reading the book. I particularly enjoyed the virtual field trip of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in which much of the action of the book occurs.
Listed towards the bottom of the Teaching with Brian Selznick page, there is a nice collection of websites for using Wonderstruck in Language, Science and Social Studies.
Additional Idea
A teacher from Neosho in one of my Web2.0 seminars a couple of weeks ago showed me a site called Museum Box. I thought it was interesting at the time, but after reading Wonderstruck...I was actually wonderstruck by the coincidence of reading the book and discovering the site. The novel centers around the concept of the museum box, the first "personal" museums! Small world, once again.
Museum Box "provides the tools for you to build up an argument or descripion of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box." Using images, sounds, and videos, students and teachers are able to collect artifacts on any topic or project creating a virtual cube of information. Sharing is easy, shared projects are searchable and the site is entirely free.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.
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