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A year has gone by, but Meggie still ponders daily about Inkheart, a book whose characters leap into being. For the fire-eater Dustfinger, though, these magical transformations have a desperate downside: He is unable to return to the tale from whence he came. Finally, he finds a crooked storyteller with the ability to read him back into the medieval story; leaving his faithful Farid stranded behind. At loose ends, the young apprentice enlists the help of Meggie. Before long, both slip into the cavernous book, which offers no immediate hope of rescue.
In this spellbinding follow-up to Inkheart, Funke expertly mixes joy, pain, suspense and magic. In the opening chapter, Dustfinger returns to Inkheart, the fantastic novel (within Funke's novel of the same name) from which he was sprung, and his "devoted" apprentice, Farid, asks Meggie to use her magical reading powers to send him into the story. Meggie, lured by the "place of marvels and adventures," goes with him. Her parents soon follow. The omniscient narrator allows readers to jump from the "real" world to Inkworld, where a war is brewing between Ombra Castle and the evil Adderhead's Castle of Night. Worse, Meggie's father, Mo (aka Silvertongue), is mistaken for a Robin Hood-type figure known as the Bluejay and is to be executed. Readers will race along with Meggie and other Inkheart favorites as the characters try to create a "happy ending." Funke again cleverly plays with the power of words: Fenoglio, the author of Inkheart, now lives in the world he created and continues to write new story lines-which play out in often unintended ways (e.g. he bases the Bluejay character on Meggie's father, putting Mo in danger). This is a thick and dark book (the Magpie shoots Mo, nearly killing him, and Basta appears for a final showdown), as well as sophisticated-especially the romance blossoming between Farid and Meggie, and Dustfinger's complicated relationship with Meggie's mother. There is much left to explore; readers will eagerly await the last in the planned trilogy. Ages 8-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Gr 5-8-Fourteen-year-old Meggie is back at home after the intrigue and adventure she encountered in Inkheart (Chicken House, 2003), the first volume in this projected trilogy. In this second episode, the calm of her life is shattered when Farid, protege of the fire-eater, Dustfinger, begs her to use her magical ability and read him into Dustfinger's story. Meggie longs to see the enchanted world she has only encountered through the pages of a book and travels with Farid into the story. Events quickly spin out of control. Evil characters from Inkheart re-emerge to extract revenge. Battle lines are drawn between two kingdoms. Several individuals are intent on re-writing the story to ensure their own happy ending. A multitude of intriguing characters are kept straight by the tour-de-force performance of actor Brendan Frazier who distinguishes each one with a different accent-from Dustfinger's Scottish burr to Fenoglio's Brooklyn inflection to Orpheus's southern drawl. His performance is so convincing that listeners must remind themselves that this is not a full-cast production. Action, romance, and danger are delivered with just the right inflection and pace in this stunning performance. Expect the popularity of the series to climb as Inkheart has been optioned for movie rights.-Tricia Melgaard, Centennial Middle School, Broken Arrow, OK Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
One year after the events of Inkheart (2003), one by one, the characters find themselves read from the real world into the Inkworld. Dustfinger is ecstatic to be back home after his long exile; Meggie is thrilled to explore the story that has seduced her with its beauty; Mo and Resa want only to bring their daughter Meggie back. The metaliterary musings begun in the previous title become grander here, as each character grapples with the possibility of challenging the fate that has been written. Fenoglio, the author of the fictional Inkheart, takes on a tragic role, as he sees his godlike idyll threatened when his words and characters take on lives of their own. Woven in and around the breakneck adventure is the provocative notion that words, and the meanings they carry, are plastic and ever susceptible to change. While the permeability of the membrane between imagination and reality may form the base of the novel, Funke delivers more than enough action, romance, tragedy, villainy and emotion to keep readers turning the pages-and waiting for the sequel the cliffhanger ending promises. (Fiction. 10+)
This sequel to the successful INKHEART is equally compelling for young readers who wish the pages of a book could come to life. With an earnest desire to experience the excitement of life inside fiction, young Meggie secretly wrangles passage to Inkworld and quickly wishes she hadn't. Reader Brendan Fraser weaves the unfolding events in a hushed, contemplative undertone, almost as if quietly reading out loud to himself--a pitch suitable for this story-within-a-story. Fraser provides richly distinct voices for the humans, including Meggie's father, Dustfinger, reprised from INKHEART. But Fraser also provides sheer delight to the listener with sounds such as the twittering of fairies and the buzzing of bees. N.M.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
