Brian Selznick

A ship. A garden. A library. In Kaleidoscope, the incomparable Brian Selznick presents the story of two people bound to each other through time and space, memory and dreams. At the centre of their relationship is a mystery about the nature of grief and love which will look different to each reader. Kaleidoscopeis a feat of storytelling that illuminates how even the wildest tales can help us in the hardest times. Brian Selznick's first book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was the winner of the esteemed Caldecott Medal, the first novel to do so, as the Caldecott Medal is for picture books Released as a live-action film Hugo in 2011, directed by Martin Scorsase and starring Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Sacha Baron Cohen, Richard Griffiths, Ray Winstone, and Christopher Lee. Brian Selznick's second book, Wonderstruck, was also made into a feature film, starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams

Kaleidoscope

Christine

I don't know what this is, but this is not middle grade

renee badenoch

Brian Selznick's Kaleidoscope was so unlike any book for kids I've read it took me a while to figure out what I thought of it. 

The book is about two boys, one unnamed, and one named James, whose story is being retold again and again in short stories throughout different worlds and times. Between each chapter is an image of a shifting Kaleidoscope, which looks surreal, abstract, dreamy, and sometimes unsettling, as the images are shown not in color, but in soft graphite pencil with uncountable shades of gray. The Kaleidoscope is a perfect image to describe the shifting nature of the stories told, in that there's repeated shapes, patterns, combinations that occur again and again, but always slightly different than before. 

The tones of the stories are mostly sad, where often the "James" of the story is absent in some form, dead, disappeared, moved away. The stories are full of unfulfilled longing, ache, missing. Still, there's also recurring connection, deep love, and wonder. Repetitions of icons dance throughout the stories, images of keys, maps, ruins, stars, islands, apples, archives. Some of the stories contain allusions to things that happen in other stories, and leaves the reader wondering if they're related or if it's only a coincidence, that perhaps the broken hearted giant in one story isn't the same as the giant who revealed himself on the beach in another. To be in this shifting world is hypnotic. 

Still.... The book was hard to love. This is mostly because almost every story ends inconclusively. I know the author did this on purpose, as he wrote much of the book in the early stages of pandemic, where the future felt entirely uncertain. The stories are meant to be suspended in an unknown space that is separate from the rest of reality, where the ending is just a guess. The book is tiring to read, as our brains long for understanding and finality, and the entire book is stories suspended mid-moment, looking forward to an unknown future with mixtures of trepidation and hope. 

I've been mulling over this book since I first read it, and I think that I will continue to do so. So if that is the mark of a good story, Brian Selznick succeeded.

Maxie Froelicher

** spoiler alert **
           I received a bookseller ARC through my job; thank you so much to the publishers for this opportunity to read this!

Kaleidoscope is very unlike Selznick's other books. It's very abstract, especially for the age range it's aimed for in my opinion, but still not entirely impossible to understand. Though there are many unanswered questions, including what actually was the timeline, what was real, what was a dream, etc., it doesn't leave you feeling unresolved at the end. 

That being said, it is a little hard to follow. It is described as telling the tale of two people, but really we are following a whole host of people and things from various timelines that all knew someone named James. Was James ever real? In one of the chapters he was an imaginary friend. In another he was lost on a shipwreck, meeting what may have been the unnamed "I" character hundreds of years after they ate the apple the dragon (who may or may not have been James) gave them. It is easy to see how a lot of the stories connect, but not exactly what events actually happened. 

The art, once again, is beautiful. It took me about half of the book to realize that the kaleidoscopes between chapters were the chapter art multiplied, which I think is genius and subtle enough that it's a fun surprise to figure out! 

Overall, this is a beautiful book, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone, not just its target age range!

Kaleidoscope

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