Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke

Retrieved from: the library
(0439531640)

Another young adult book, this is a story close to a librarian's (or any book lover's) heart: what if you could make the characters in books come to life just by reading the books out loud? All those wonderful adventure tales, etc. etc.

Truthfully, I never wanted to bring the adventures to life, but I would like to read Laura and Mary and Ma and Pa to life... except as Ms. Funke describes, they would be out of sorts and feel completely wrong in this era.

In this story, Mo reads three characters out of a book called Inkheart, but the trade-off is that his wife and two cats trade places with them. Fortunately, his three-year-old daughter remains with him.

Fast-forward nine years, and it becomes very apparent that these characters are Not Good Men. At least two of them are Evil Villains. And we are off on the wild adventures of Mo, Maggie (his daughter) and Elinor (his wife's aunt, an obsessive book-collector) as they try to rescue Inkheart, Italy and Teresa (wife, mother, niece). It's a rollicking, scary, fun book. Also very long: 534 pages in hardcover.

One of the best parts of the design of the book is the inclusion at the beginning of each chapter of quotes from famous children's books: The Wind in the Willows; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Watership Down; Where the Wild Things Are (how odd, all these begin with 'W'....hmmm). These quotes give you not only a sense of where the story will be going in that chapter, but a sense for how the characters are feeling at that point in the story.

Great read, pretty fast. Similar to The Thief Lord, but more magical.