Currently Reading: Inkheart

The book Mo was reading that night was bound in pale blue linen. Later, Meggie remembered that too. What unimportant little details stick in the memory.

"Mo, there's someone out in the yard!"

Her father raised his head and looked at her with the usual absent expression he wore when she interrupted his reading. It always took him a few moments to find his way out of that other world, the labyrinth of printed letters.

"Someone out in the yard? Are you sure?"

"Yes. He's staring at our house."

Mo put down his book. "So what were you reading before you went to sleep? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?"

Author: Cornelia Funke

Synopsis: Meggie Folchart lives with her father, a bookbinder, in a house filled with books--but she has never been able to convince him to read aloud to her. When a stranger named Dustfinger shows up in the night, she embarks on a bookish adventure involving magical creatures, a villain and his cruel henchmen, a boy from the Arabian Nights, and the mother who had vanished when Meggie was only three.

Notes: I adored this book. Despite the English text's having been translated (from the original German), the writing kept me enchanted--fanciful description, spunky little pre-teen heroine, quirky characters, and murderous suspense. I'm actually a little bit afraid to get the sequels.

The tale also has its poignant moments--things twelve-year-old Meggie only begins to comprehend, but she sees enough to let her readers know what is really in her father's heart.

The quotes from various children's books, heading up every chapter, add to the fun.