Inkheart

It's been a long time since I posted a review, and I finally read something that inspired me to write one.

I read Cornelia Funke's book Inkheart. It is a children's book that tells a very interesting story. The main premise is that the main character's father (and others) have the ability to magically "read" characters and objects right out of books into our world. The drawback is that something from our world always seems to go into the book to replace what's come out.

The story begins with a young girl (Meggie) who lives with her bookbinder father (Mo). The two have a great love of books and reading, and live a happy enough life - although the girl's mother "went away" about nine years ago. A strange person shows up at their house, and talks to Mo. He warns Mo that he's in danger - a villain is after a book of his. Mo takes Meggie to an aunt's house far away. This aunt is a great book collector. Mo pretends to be visiting only to rebind some rare books, but he also hopes to hide the coveted volume from the villain (named Capricorn).

The book (also named Inkheart) is of great importance to the story because nine years ago Mo was reading from the book and Capricorn came out of it, along with his faithful sidekick Basta. At the same time, Mo's wife was trapped in the book. Capricorn has several reasons for tracking down both Mo and his copy of Inkheart, and the story develops as these reasons become apparent.

The story is rather anti-epic, meaning there are relatively few characters (about a dozen that you really get to know) and the story takes place in relatively confined area geographically. This seems to be the case in many works of children's literature, and is in no way a detriment to this story. The premise that characters can jump out of a book if it's read aloud is a very interesting concept, especially given how someone form our world must take their place. I found the story hard to put down. It was a book that I liked without really being sure why. I'm not sure I can call it a masterwork, but it evoked emotional reactions at the right times, and it had just enough twists at the end to avoid being completely predictable. This was a good one, and I'd recommend it to anyone who like Harry Potter, Fablehaven, etc. It gets four antelopes.