The novel Inkheart takes place mostly in northern Italy but the book doesn’t specify the year. Two of the main Characters in Inkheart are Mo, often referred to as “Silvertongue” they race all of Italy in search of a book in which an evil known as Capricorn hails from and his daughter Meggie, whose mother has been missing sense she was five, she is also a lover of books.
In their quest they team up with Elinor Mo’s aunt and a collector of books, Dustfinger a fire-eater and raiser and his new apprentice Farid who was surprisingly read out of the “1001 Arabian Nights”. Cornelia Funke finished writing Inkheart in 2003, The German version was published by Cecilie Dressler Verlag and the English version translated by Anthea Bell was published by Chicken House Publishing and Scholastic Corporation. I think the story of this book shows the true power of reading books themselves.
This story in a masked way shows how much of and influence books can have on our lives. We read them and we remember how a character acted or what they said in the face of danger. Meggie from Inkheart often uses the courage of heroes and heroines that she reads about in her books. She looks to them as role models and also as shields to try to protect her from the horrors of both the real world and the one that dwells in Inkheart.
In the book most if not all of the main characters learn something new about themselves in their quest to retrieve Inkheart from the clutches of Capricorn, the main villain. Meggie for example, learns that she possesses the same power as her father, the power to read people and things out of books. The adventure that the characters in the book take is a hard one but it and their quest for a book so powerful brings them together even when things seem hopeless.
In the time before Inkheart Mo read aloud to his wife Teresa, one night he began reading and suddenly she was one and three people stood in her place Dustfinger, Capricorn and his second, Basta. After this he sees reading aloud as an evil thing, as he blames himself for the disappearance of his beloved wife and vows to never read aloud again. But, when Inkheart ends he sees how so much beauty can come from books and so he focuses on the good things instead of the bad. He is changed by the Inkheart in a bad way at first, but after his long adventure and his reunification with Teresa he realizes that is wasn’t his fault but an uncontrollable gift and curse that he has been given.
To conclude Inkheart is a story about the power that books can yield and how they influence us in our lives. From bringing out the best in ourselves to bringing people together when we really need it and the ability to learn how to see things in a new ways and see the glass as half full. Inkheart is a great book and deserves to be read over and over.
