BookBrowse Reviews Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Characters from stories leap off the page. Ages 12+

From the book jacket: Meggie lives a quiet life alone with her father, a bookbinder. But her father has a deep secret -- he possesses an extraordinary magical power. One cruel night, as Meggie's father reads a book called Inkheart aloud, an evil ruler named Capricorn escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly, the two are plunged into the kind of adventure Meggie has only encountered in fiction, and they must somehow learn to harness the magic they were reading about to change the course of the story -- before it ruins their lives forever.

Comments:
'Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing fantasy....This "story within a story" will delight not just fantasy fans, but all readers who like an exciting plot with larger-than-life characters. Grade 4-8.' - School Library Journal.

'Despite the presence of several well-developed, sympathetic characters, the plot is often driven by the decidedly menacing, less-convincing villains...Like many other fantasies, this will appeal to a broad age range, though the writing is far less child-centered than it is, for example, in the Harry Potter series. Gr. 6-12.' - Booklist.

This review first ran in the June 1, 2005 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.