Inkheart

Book 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.

Is It Any Good?

This book could easily have been half the length and still told the same story. As with Cornelia Funke's previous book, The Thief Lord, some children will be put off by the leisurely pace of INKHEART while others will be enthralled by the unusual story (though not that unusual -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did the same kind of thing in his movie The Last Action Hero.)

Despite the slow pacing and repetition, this is 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.