Book-A-Day Almanac

On March 5th we celebrated a relatively new holiday, World Read Aloud Day. I’d like to continue this celebration by talking about my favorite recent read-aloud, written by Germany’s bestselling author for children, Cornelia Funke. Cornelia was brought to the attention of publisher Barry Cunningham by a devoted fan. The girl wrote to Cunningham, who had discovered J. K. Rowling, and told him that although he published the Harry Potter books, he did not publish the best writer in the world—Cornelia Funke. This letter piqued his interest, and after he read a translation of a couple of chapters of The Thief Lord, Cunningham was convinced that Cornelia deserved a chance to beguile English-speaking children. When The Thief Lord appeared, it became a New York Times bestseller.

Funke both wrote and illustrated her next book to appear in English, Inkheart, our book of the day. By working  with Anthea Bell on the translation, she was able to get the right sound and timbre to her words. I’ve always been glad that so much attention was paid to the translation, because it is one of the reasons why Inkheart reads aloud so well.

In this book-lover’s story, twelve-year-old Meggie lives with her father Mo. Her mother has been gone for nine years. Father and daughter both adore books. He repairs them; together they read voraciously and share their love of the written stories. One night a mysterious stranger appears, Dustfinger, and in a rush Mo takes Meggie to the home of her mother’s aunt Eleanor, another book nut who collects rare editions. They are fleeing from a pursuer, the evil Capricorn and his henchmen; eventually they all end up as prisoners in his medieval Italian village.

Only then does Meggie begin to learn her true history. Mo can read aloud so brilliantly that he actually coaxes characters from books into the real world. Unfortunately, a real person from this world then goes into the book. Hence Meggie’s mother, Theresa, vanished into a book called Inkheart. Capricorn, Basta, Dustfinger, and other villains emerged from the tale to cause terror in this world. Meggie also discovers that she has inherited this reading gift from her father, when she brings Tinkerbell out of Peter Pan one day. After Mo brings the author of Inkheart into the adventure, Meggie attempts to reorder the world in the right way. Although probably every lover of literature harbors a fantasy about actually meeting a character that they love in fiction, most of us would not like to encounter some of its villains face-to-face.

Funke sets scenes and creates atmosphere brilliantly. All the chapters are just the right length for reading aloud; they contain a lot of action, cliff-hanging endings, and beautiful language. The book has been perfect for use with nine- through fourteen-year-olds, in class or at home. Reading this book slowly, savoring the scenes and the details of the plot, actually makes it more enjoyable than reading it independently.

So if you are hunting for a great book to read aloud, pick up Inkheart. For those who become enthralled, it begins a trilogy continued in Inkspell and Inkdeath.

Here’s a passage from the Inkheart: