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Summary and Reviews of Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Inkheart

by Cornelia Funke
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (113):
  • First Published:
  • Oct 1, 2003, 544 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2005, 560 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing, action-packed fantasy by the author of The Thief Lord.

From the author of the sensational New York Times bestseller The Thief Lord comes a thrilling new adventure about magic and self-discovery.

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.

Chapter 1
A Stranger in the Night

The moon shone in the rocking horse's eye, and in the mouse's eye, too, when Tolly fetched it out from under his pillow to see. The clock went tick-tock, and in the stillness he thought he heard little bare feet running across the floor, then laughter and whispering, and a sound like the pages of a big book being turned over.

L. M. Boston, The Children of Green Knowe

Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain. Many years later, Meggie had only to close her eyes and she could still hear it, like tiny fingers tapping on the windowpane. A dog barked somewhere in the darkness, and however often she tossed and turned Meggie couldn't get to sleep.

The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages. "I'm sure it must be very comfortable sleeping with a hard, rectangular thing like that under your head," her father had teased the first time...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
About This Books

Mortimer is a bookbinder and has passed on his great love of books to his daughter Meggie, but he has never read aloud to her. When a stranger named Dustfinger appears at their home, Meggie's world turns upside down. She soon learns some startling truths — about her mother's disappearance nine years earlier, and the mysterious book called Inkheart that her father tries desperately to hide at the book-filled home of Elinor, Meggie's great aunt.  She learns that the reason Mo has never read aloud to her is because he has a secret, mysterious, ...
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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

With over 80 reader reviews for Inkheart at BookBrowse, with an average rating of 5 stars, it's clear that this engrossing literary fantasy is a hit with its target audience!..continued

Full Review (207 words)

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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Media Reviews

Amazon.com - Jennifer Hubert
Meggie’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.....Cornelia Funke’s imaginative ode to books and book lovers is sure to be enjoyed by fans of her breakout debut, The Thief Lord.

Kirkus Reviews
It is hard to avoid preciosity in books about books, but here Funke pulls off the feat with vigor....Master translator Bell takes the German text and spins out of it vivid images and heart-stopping language that impel the reader through this adventure about narratives-a true feast for anyone who has ever been lost in a book. (Fiction. 10+)

School Library Journal - Sharon Rawlins
Grade 4-8. 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.

Booklist - Carolyn Phelan
Gr. 6-12. 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.

Children's Literature - Sharon Salluzzo
Funke has created a fast paced mysterious adventure tale for book lovers. Well-developed characters (some humorous, others sympathetic, and some downright nasty in their deeds) and a strong sense of place will keep readers turning the pages. She begins each chapter with quotes from well-known children's books and successfully links them with the events of the chapters. 2003. Ages 10 to 14.

Reader Reviews

Bob Zarate

8; I couldn't stop reading it!
I am a fifth grader, and I read this book whenever I could: in between classes, during recess ( that is saying something), after I ate my lunch, when I was waiting for my grandma to pick me up from carpool, and during weekends, when I could be ...   Read More
Camy

Wow??
Its absolutely amazing and you should read it and I love it
saije

my favorite book
Not only is the story line and vocabulary marvelous, but the structure is also - where which a new exert from a random book is given at the top of every chapter.
Chelsey

Inkheart
I like this book

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Beyond the Book



Cornelia Funke was born 1958 in Dorsten, Westphalia. Although she is one of Germany''s best-selling children's book authors, she was relatively unknown in the United States until The Chicken House, whose books are published by Scholastic in the United States, published The Thief Lord in September 2002. The Chicken House's publisher and managing director, Barry Cunningham, received a letter from a bilingual (English and German) young girl living in England, who wanted to know why her favorite author wasn't published in English. Barry set about the task of tracking down the latest title from Cornelia Funke, Herr Der Diebe. When he published its...

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Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

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