Another wonderful, unique book with wonderful storylines and beautiful illustrations. After around half the book being a story of illustrations and no text, we meet Joseph, a run away, equally unhappy at school as at home, he has uninterested parents who are not present in his life and he doesn't fit in at school. Running away he reaches his uncle Andrew, whose artistic, museum like house gives Joseph a safe haven, a place to fit in and a mystery to solve. A book about discovering who you are an...

I think this is one of those books I'll enjoy more with the passing of time. It gives you something to think about without being predictable. Out of all the books by Selznick I've read, this is probably the most dialogue focused. I don't think it's his strongest work, but it's worth reading all the same. Discovering how much research really went into making this book was also fascinating. I'd love to pay a visit to the house one day.

Brian Selznick has made a 3rd masterpiece in a row. This book is about good stories, Shakespeare, Ships, and hard life experiences. I like how straight forward the gay uncle is presented. This book is about layers and creating your own life. The art is beautiful in the book and the outside is gorgeous also. I will miss having this story to read. It was incredible. It is so well told - really. If you are going to read any middle grade, try Brian Selznick after Harry Potter. Also, if you like grap...

I don’t think any amount of stars, on Goodreads or in the night sky, will convey just how much this book and it’s creator mean to me!!! Brian Selznick became my inspiration when I discovered his book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” at age 9. Now, at age 23, Brian Selznick is still my inspiration after reading all of the breathtaking books he’s created since then! It sounds incredibly over dramatic, but it couldn’t be more true…He is the reason I am the reader, illustrator, and writer I am today!

“That’s what life is, Joseph realized, miracles and sadness, side by side.” I fell in love with Brian Selznick's artwork in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which I think is the reason I keep coming back to read his new books. I love the way his sketchbook-style, beautiful charcoal drawings resemble movie scenes, with the pages zooming in on characters' expressions. There are pages and pages of these wonderful drawings. The thing is, although I've always found Selznick's artwork stunning,

Continuing his unique theme of storytelling, Selznick takes his readers on a dual adventure told in pictures and then words. The first adventure is experienced solely in pictures and begins in 1776 on a ship named the Kraken. After a massive storm, there is only a single survivor: Billy Marvel. The pictures tell of his story, how he came to be connected to the Royal Theatre in London, and how subsequent generations became well-known actors with their own story to tell. The visually impressive il...

my blog review. Brian Selznick is one of the great artists of our time. In what is now a trilogy (The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Wonderstruck, and now The Marvels ) he has created a unique storytelling style, one that blends illustration and text in an engrossingly original way. It is an aesthetic and emotive experience not like that of a graphic novel, but one closer to a cinematic viewing experience or a theatrical one; the three books are rich with scenes of powerful beauty created with pap...

The Marvels, Brian SelznickBrian Selznick once again plays with the form, he invented and takes readers on an awe-inspiring voyage! Two seemingly unrelated stories-one in words, the other in pictures-come together with spellbinding synergy! The illustrated story begins in 1766 with Billy Marvel, the lone survivor of a shipwreck, and charts the adventures of his family of actors over five generations. The prose story opens in 1990 and follows Joseph, who has run away from school to an estranged u...

I was very disappointed by this book. Perhaps I should have read more into it before blindly buying it, but I bought it spontaneously because of the beautiful cover and the mysteriously magical synopsis. Also Brian Selznick is known for his fantastical stories, such as Hugo, and I expected no less from this one. I was all set to read about this family's eccentric life of theatre and peculiar characters and the mysteries behind the house and so on. Instead, all I got was this strangely boring sto...

2.5 starsObviously Selznick does amazing things. His art is fantastic and I love that he basically writes highly sophisticated picture books. I’d love to see more books follow his example actually. That said, I didn’t find the story contained in The Marvels particularly compelling.There’s actually not really a plot here at all. I mean, there’s the pseudo-mystery of Joseph’s uncle’s house, but really not much happens in this book at all. There’s something aged about this book, and I don’t mean th...

I sometimes feel that Brian Selznick doesn't belong to this era. How he manages to find all these interesting true stories and characters is beyond me. Told in his signature style, the story of the Marvels is seeped in old-world charm. This book features two intertwined stories from two different centuries - one in prose and the other entirely in pictures. As always, the illustrations are intricately beautiful. And the story is about as mysterious as it gets. Although I felt the mystery bit was

Enchanting illustrations and a striking story. A true masterpiece.

Don't let the length of time I spent on this book fool you, we were right in the middle of end-of-the-year school madness so I was forced to put it (and everything else) down for a while. This book was incredible. I loved everything about it - hands down my favorite from Selznick yet. I had no idea where this was going, none at all. I thought I had it figured out but I was so very far from close. When I had to put it down halfway through due to work, I thought I knew where it was going so imagin...

This was great! Pretty atmosphere and symbolic, which made the book so meaningful and beautiful to read. I loved how the illustrations were woven into the story and the intricacies that went along with it, and this was definitely a well-done book that I'd recommend! Selznick is just a genius.

Why have I never put this on my "Read" shelf? I've read it like twice!

I wasn't sure about reading this book since I am one of the few people who wasn't bowled over by another of the author's books, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I enjoyed the illustrations in that book, but I thought the characters and the story lacked depth. Not so in the case of this book which had not one but two stories to tell, each of them amazing in their own right, and doubly so as they intertwined. Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about them without spoiling things. But what I will say...

I believe that, right before blowing out every single candle on the cake, a young reader somewhere made a spectacular wish for a book filled with gorgeous illustrations and a fabulous, fanciful story rich with quirky characters, adventure and mystery. Mr. Selznick fulfilled this wish in grand fashion.To open The Marvels is to be immediately immersed in a harrowing adventure at sea. In the blink of an eye….or to be precise, the turn of several pages, invested in the story of a shipwreck with spun...

Breathtaking.I've seen some people who don't love this book, and their reasons seem to mostly be because it's different from his others. Instead of the pictures being intermingled with the text, there is one complete story told in pictures for the first 2/3rds of the pages, then a story entirely in text for the rest of the book. But there's a reason why, and the reason is a very startling twist, and I loved it. His prose is very straightforward, simple really, and almost as quick to read as the

I just...I can't even...It's so hard to find the perfect words to describe how I felt about this book. I read both Wonderstruck and The Invention of Hugo Cabret and I loved both of them so much. Ever since those books, I couldn't stop thinking about how powerful they were. Brian Selznick is one of the most unique authors that I have read from. He uses pictures and words in a beautiful way and the stories connect and everything slides into place. All of his books have a powerful meaning to th

This book was magnificent and is solidly tied with Wonderstruck (also by Selznick) for my favourite of his three books. This one is formatted slightly differently from the previous two becuase it's half told in pictures and half told in text, but unlike his previous works the pictures do not dissect the text, rather there is one section of solid imagery and one section of solid text. This is the story of the Marvels, a family of actors with great notoriety and a wonderful past on the stage. This...