Debroah and I have talked about how the book Inkheart [and the sequal Inkspell ] relate to this class but we both keep forgeting to blog about them. If anyone is searching for something amazing to read over the break, Inkheart is a winner. The movie version is coming out next spring which is also exciting. I thought the title, “Inkheart” was particularly interesting. . .

Basic things that I remember which relate:

Mo, the father repairs old books for a living.

Mother is absent for most of the book [it is very Helen Rossi-ish] also when mother does show up, she can’t talk but rather must write to communicate. . .maybe because these books are after dna tests? I don’t know. . .

Daughter has been given a love for books from her father.

Mo has the ability to “read” character out of books.

There is just generally a lot of writing and reading and books and fathers.

 Here are some Amazon summeries:

Amazon.com
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.

Meggie, now a young lady, knows nothing of her father’s bizarre and powerful talent, only that Mo still refuses to read to her. Capricorn, a being so evil he would “feed a bird to a cat on purpose, just to watch it being torn apart,” has searched for Meggie’s father for years, wanting to twist Mo’s powerful talent to his own dark means. Finally, Capricorn realizes that the best way to lure Mo to his remote mountain hideaway is to use his beloved, oblivious daughter Meggie as bait!

From School Library Journal
Grade 4-8-Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing fantasy. Meggie, 12, has had her father to herself since her mother went away when she was young. Mo taught her to read when she was five, and the two share a mutual love of books. Things change after a visit from a scarred man who calls himself Dustfinger and who refers to Mo as Silvertongue. Meggie learns that her father has been keeping secrets. He can “read” characters out of books. When she was three, he read aloud from a book called Inkheart and released Dustfinger and other characters into the real world. At the same time, Meggie’s mother disappeared into the story. Mo also released Capricorn, a sadistic villain who takes great pleasure in murdering people. He has sent his black-coated henchmen to track down Mo and intends to force him to read an immortal monster out of the story to get rid of his enemies. Meggie, Mo, Dustfinger, and Meggie’s great-aunt Elinor are pursued, repeatedly captured, but manage to escape from Capricorn’s henchmen as they attempt to find the author of Inkheart in the hope that he can write a new ending to the story. This “story within a story” will delight not just fantasy fans, but all readers who like an exciting plot with larger-than-life characters. Pair this title with Roderick Townley’s The Great Good Thing (2001) and Into the Labyrinth (2002, both Atheneum) for a wonderful exploration of worlds within words.

erin