Inkheart

Creativity. Love. Adventure. Suspense. This original fantasy novel written by Cornelia Funke has got it all. Readers meet Meggie, a charming, imaginitive 12 year old who experiences some fantastic adventures. Life is never dull when characters leap out of  the pages as your father reads.

Pros: This book is skillfully written. The first few chapters beautifully describe Meggie's love for books. The entire novel is a true page turner, without a boring moment. 

The book a contains many positive themes such as Meggie's love and loyalty to her father and her bravery. This book can be enjoyed by 10 year olds to one hundred year olds.

Cons: While the book demonstrates many positive morals, Meggie, her father, and the other characters often lie and practice deception. Meggie tells readers that she feels bad about lying to her father, she feels it is necessary to do so. Meggie's father also believes he needs to lie to protect her from danger. Throughout the book, lying and deception are portrayed as necessary in some situations. Parents would do well to discuss this with their children, before and after they read the book.

Also, many of the scenes in this book are suspenseful, violent, and out right scary. The "bad guys" are really bad. Parents should use caution when determining whether or not this book is appropriate for their child.

On that note, Inkheart lovers may consider watching the movie which was made a few years ago. Once again, use caution when making the decision to see the movie. In the movie, the heartwarming, imaginative elements from the book were overshadowed by the violent dramatization of the suspenseful scenes. The movie are full of bad guys with disturbing appearances, dark foggy settings, and gruesome creatures. Overall, I found that the movie took away some of the warm feelings I had after reading the book. My advice would be enjoy the book, skip the movie.

*Also see the Plugged in Online movie review: 

http://www.pluggedin.com/videos/2009/Q2/Inkheart.aspx

In conclusion, this beautifully written fantasy novel is a work of art, that will be enjoyed by a wide audience of all ages.