Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

From the Scholastic website: One night Meggie's father, Mo, reads aloud from a book called Inkheart, and an evil ruler named Capricorn escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly Meggie is smack in the middle of the kind of adventure she has only read about in books.


I think the problem with this one was too high expectations on my part because it really is a great story. The family is interesting and endearing and quirky. The villains are dark and heartless. The setting is described in great detail with the little glimpses we get of the world from inside the book (fairies and trolls) magical and fanciful. I like all the elements. The plot was suspenseful. I thought the solution was quite clever and well executed by the characters. But.. I was more than ready for it to end. It was a long book 500+ pages and I never got hooked. I was curious. I was impressed with the details and thought as I read, "Oh this is a good story." but it wasn't a story that captured me so I had to push myself to keep reading. But in the words of George Kastanza, "Inkheart, its not you, its me."

BTW..the Scholastic website above has some stuff for the kids to do and I passed this one on to Youngest, age 10, we'll see what he thinks!

Click here to see my progress towards completing the challenge!