Inkheart

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke




Paperback: 560 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks (June 1, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0439709105

Amazon.com ReviewMeggie’s father, Mo, has an wonderful and sometimes terrible ability. When he reads aloud from books, he brings the characters to life--literally. Mo discovered his power when Maggie was just a baby. He read so lyrically from the the book Inkheart, that several of the book’s wicked characters ended up blinking and cursing on his cottage floor. Then Mo discovered something even worse--when he read Capricorn and his henchmen out of Inkheart, he accidentally read Meggie’s mother in.
Meggie, now a young lady, knows nothing of her father's bizarre and powerful talent, only that Mo still refuses to read to her. Capricorn, a being so evil he would "feed a bird to a cat on purpose, just to watch it being torn apart," has searched for Meggie's father for years, wanting to twist Mo's powerful talent to his own dark means. Finally, Capricorn realizes that the best way to lure Mo to his remote mountain hideaway is to use his beloved, oblivious daughter Meggie as bait!

This is a reread for me. The first of a trilogy that I read some time ago. It's a YA book, but I enjoy it so much I can tell you that adults will like it every bit as much as a young person will.

It's the story of a young girl (Meggie) and her father (Mo). When Meggie was very young Mo would read to her, and one night a strange thing happened.. characters from the book he was reading appeared in his house! ... and his wife "disappeared".

That was nine years ago and now the past is catching up to Mo. One of the unsavory characters that came out of the book has been searching for him to read things out of a book for him. Needless to say, this is a book about... books! (I'm smiling).

Inkheart has great character building and fabulous characters both good and evil! It has already been made into a movie that will be released in January. The movie managed to entice the likes of Brandon Frazier who plays Mo and Helen Mirrin who plays Elinor and Andy Serkis who plays the evil Capricorn.

Quotes from Inkheart:

"If you take a book with you on a journey," Mo had said when he put the first one in her box, "an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories. And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it. It will all come into your mind with the very first words: the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it ... yes, books are like flypaper. Memories cling to the printed page better than anything else."
(Mo knows!)

(Basta speaking) "Who thought up that story?" he asked. "Your father? You think I look stupid? Everyone knows that stories in books are as old as the hills and were written by people dead and buried long ago." he jabbed the blade of the knife into the wood, pulled it our, and jabbed it in again. Flatnose was trampling around overhead.
(Everyone knows books are written by dead people)

(Elinor) She wept, so loudly that she even alarmed herself and put a hand to her mouth. A twig cracked under her feet, and the light went out behind one of the windows in Capricorn's village. She had been right. The world was a terrible place, cruel, pitiless, dark as a bad dream. Not a good place to live in. Only in books could you find pity, comfort happiness... and love. Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave yo security and friendship and didn't ask anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly. Love, truth, beauty, wisdom and consolation against death. Who had said that? Someone else who loved books; she couldn't remember the author's name, only the words. Words are immortal.. until someone comes along and burns them.
(No one loves books like Elinor)

I will move on to reread Inkspell, and then finally get to read the newly released 3rd book called Inkdeath!

So far, this trilogy and one other (Bartimaeus trilogy) are the greatest kids books I've read and would highly recommend them!

(this is not to say I haven't read others that are fabulous.. but these two trilogies are "complete".. whereas others I am reading still have not completed their stories..)