Review Detail

Reader reviewed by lia

Always look behind the pages of a book and do not dare to read out loud....

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, dangerous gift --- when he reads aloud, objects and charaters come out of the books --- a skill he discovered when Capricorn, the dark villain of INKHEART, came into the world when Meggie was three. Teresa, Meggie's mother, disappeared at the same time, presumably into the story.

Capricorn uses Dustfinger, who is another character from the story, to lure Mo and Meggie to his hideout village; there Meggie sees a demonstration of her father's reading skill when he brings gold treasure out of TREASURE ISLAND and a young Arab boy out of the ARABIAN NIGHTS. When Dustfinger learns Capricorn's true plans, he helps Mo, Meggie, and Elinor escape over the hills. Mo searches out Fenoglio, the author of the book, and together they devise a plan to foil Capricorn's terrible schemes. But Meggie is recaptured along with Fenoglio, and Capricorn discovers that she, too, has the same magical gift. In a rousing finish, Fenoglio and Meggie find a way to foil Capricorn's plans --- with surprising results.

This is a wonderful book to read I promise you will not even think about stop reading this book!