I've heard good things for years about The Invention of Hugo Cabret, but I was always a little intimidated because it's such a huge book. It turns out it's half graphic novel, with large full-spread illustrations that you flip through rapidly, in a way that reminds of a flickery black-and-white movie -- appropriate because the book touches on the invention of the motion picture in France. So, it took just over a train ride to read the whole thing -- nowhere near as intimidating as I'd thought. The story suffers a little from "I can't tell you why I'm doing this because the book would be too short it's my secret" syndrome, but the illustrations are gorgeous and Hugo is a plucky young hero.

FuzzyCo grade: A-