Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
In the mid-nineteenth century an artist named Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins had one ambition: to show the world what dinosaurs looked like. His astonishing life-size models impressed the Queen and wowed the crowds at the famous Crystal Palace exhibition. This intriguing true story will captivate readers of any age.
