Inkheart

Inkheart

Cornelia Funke

©2003

535 Pages

Ages 9-12

Summary

Inkheart is one of my all time favorite books. It is a book about a book. Mo loves to read. He used to read so magically and fluently that things would come alive off the page. However, there is a trade. For everything that comes out, something has to go back in. Mo hasn't read since the night he was reading to his wife and daughter from the pages of a book called Inkheart. They night he read out the villain of the book as well as a couple other characters. In exchange, his wife was trapped in the pages. Nine years later, this mistake has come back to haunt Mo and his daughter Meggie. Mo and Meggie try to dodge the villain Capricorn with the help of Dustfinger (one of the characters he read out of Inkheart), but are ultimately unsuccessful. Capricorn tries to get Mo to read him riches out of a book but a boy comes out instead. Mo tries to explain that he doesn't have any control over what comes out and Capricorn gets upset with him. They all escape and track down the author of Inkheart because Mo thinks that he might be able to read his beloved wife back out of the book, but the author's copy had been stolen long ago. Meggie gets captured by Capricorn once again and realizes while in captivity that she has the same gift as her father. Capricorn learns this and tries to get her to read his assassin out of Inkheart. The plan ultimately fails when she turns the assassin on its master and has the shadow kill Capricorn instead.