A Huge Collection of Vintage Children's Illustrations, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, & George Melies

I have a a project in mind to scan all my children's books for their illustrations and with a little searching, I happened to find a group on Flickr who had the same idea. There are nearly 30,000 illustrations on this site to inspire any aspiring children's book illustrators.

I am not often asked who my favorite children's book illustrators are and while I will buy a book for beautiful illustrations, the story is far more important to me. The most recent book I read that was beautifully illustrated was Brian Selznick's "The Invention of Hugo Cabret". It's more illustrations than text, but really beautifully done. The story revolves around Hugo Cabret who works in the Montparnasse train station fixing clocks, the automaton he discovers, and a man who sells little toys in the train station modeled after French film director and magician George Melies.

I highly recommend this book (soon to be a movie directed by Martin Scorcese) for any child, especially if they love comic books and films. The text isn't especially spectacular, but it does tell a good story.

Here are a few illustrations from the book:

If you do read this book you may become fascinated by the French director where the story was taken from, George Melies. His most famous work was titled "La voyage dans la lune".

If you do become obsessed with the films of Georges Melies you can buy his films, released by a little French restoration company called Lobster Films on Amazon. I stumbled upon the coffret at the MK2 shop on the Quai de la Loire (19eme) and think this collection is worth every penny.

If you read about the history of George Melies' little studio in Montregeuil and see these films you will be amazed. I'm pretty sure the George Melies is why Scorcese agreed to direct the film. Melies had no modern equipment. Not even lights. Instead he built a glass ceiling in his studio and used the sun to make a film about the moon. The more you learn about George Melies the more you will learn about the birth of cinema, invention, and ingenuity.

Melies had a somewhat sad end in real life, but I like to think rediscovering his work makes the story less sad because his magic continues to live on.