A good holiday read, well-paced and with plenty of adventure: Funke is the second most popular children's author in Germany (after J K Rowling) and she knows how to tell a story. Meggie is a bookbinder's daughter, brought up to adore and cherish books. She finds herself embroiled in a villainous plot to turn a particular book, Inkheart, into reality. There's danger and death, an intelligent animal, plenty of references to favourite books (each chapter's headed with an excerpt from another book, ranging from Watership Down to The Lord of the Rings -- indeed, a lot of my enjoyment was from the nostalgia and happy memories these evoked!), death and darkness and bad things. Anyone who loves books and reading (and rereading) will see a little of themselves in Meggie.
Where the book failed, for me, was in the language. I don't know whether that's because of a fairly prosaic (and occasionally clunky) translation, or because it's aimed at a fairly young audience -- early teens, at a guess. Easy to pick up and put down, but I wouldn't have minded a little more depth: unfair of me, though, because the book's very good at what it is, which is an entertaining and pacey story for children.
reposted here from LJ in order to keep all my reviews in one place
No comments:
Post a Comment