Common Sense Note
Parents should know that the villains are really quite wicked, and Meggie is often in mortal danger. There's an edge to the villainy here that some children find enthralling, others disturbing. Book-loving children and their parents will enjoy the literary references and celebration of books in the lives of the heroes.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
J. K. Rowling may have shown that children will read long books, but that doesn't mean they have to be long. This book could easily have been half the length and still told the same story. As with her previous book, The Thief Lord, some children will be put off by the leisurely pace while others will be enthralled by the unusual story (though not that unusual -- Gov. Schwarzenegger did the same kind of thing in his movie The Last Action Hero.)
Despite the slow pacing and repetitiveness this is quite a rousing adventure. Meggie is a stalwart heroine and the villains are truly creepy and brutal (perhaps too much so for some children). Each chapter begins with a quote from another children's book, both foreshadowing the chapter and giving pleasure to bibliophiles. And the whole thing is a paean to books, authors, reading, and especially reading aloud. An enjoyable, if flabbily edited, adventure.
From the Book:
Meggie stroked their curved spines. Which books should she take this time? Which stories would help to drive away the fear that had crept into the house last night? I know, thought Meggie, why not a story about telling lies. Mo told her lies. He told terrible lies, even though he knew that every time he told one she looked hard at his nose. Pinocchio, thought Meggie. No, too sinister. And too sad. But she wanted something exciting, a story to drive all other thoughts out of her head, even the darkest. The Witches, yes. She'd take the bald-headed witches who turn children into mice -- and The Odyssey, with the Cyclops and the enchantress who transforms his warriors into pigs. Her journey could hardly be more dangerous than his, could it?
Plot Summary:
Meggie's life with her father Mo, a bookbinder, is disrupted when a mysterious scarred man named Dustfinger appears at their home. Soon she discovers that her father has the ability to read things and even characters out of books. But this ability is a curse -- when someone comes out of a book, someone else from our world goes into the book, and this, Meggie learns, is how she lost her mother many years ago.
Now the villain, Capricorn, whom Mo accidentally released from a book called Inkheart, is determined to capture Mo, Meggie, and the book, and force Mo to read both treasure and an evil creature out of the book, using Meggie as his hostage. Betrayed by Dustfinger and on the run from Capricorn, they travel across Europe to find the author of Inkheart.
Related Books:
Other Books by Cornelia Funke
The Thief Lord
Dragon Rider
More Metafiction
The Great Good Thing by Roderick Townley
Into the Labyrinth by Roderick Townley
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Travel Far, Pay No Fare by Anne Lindbergh
The Bookstore Mouse by Peggy Christian
Summer Reading is Killing Me by Jon Scieszka
Bad Dreams by Ann Fine
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