Read it or Ditch it: Inkheart

“Read it or Ditch it” is a weekly feature I’m doing each Monday. Every week I’ll select a book that has sat unread on my shelves for longer than a year and ask the question “Read it or Ditch it?”. If I still want to read it, then by posting it here I’m claiming that I’ll read it by the end of the year. If I’m no longer interested in the book, then this is a send off to the title since I’ll either be donating or selling it.

At the end of the year, I’ll do a round-up post to see how I did. If there are any titles that I said I’d read, but still didn’t, then I’ll either donate or sell those.

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Inkheart
Author: Cornelia Funke
Published: 2003
Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy
Series: Inkworld #1
Length of Time on TBR Pile: about 7 years
Read it or Ditch it?: Ditch it

I bought Inkheart back when I was working at a bookstore in 2009. Normally, I don’t read middle grade books, but when I was working there I tried to read them occasionally. I did this mostly so that I could make recommendations for that age group. I picked this one up in particular because, around that time period, the movie came out with Brendan Fraser and it looked interesting. I just never got around to reading it back then and I’m no longer interested in it. So, this one’s going to be donated.

For those interested, here’s the synopsis:

Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can “read” fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing fantasy. Meggie has had her father to herself since her mother went away when she was young. Mo taught her to read when she was five, and the two share a mutual love of books. He can “read” characters out of books. When she was three, he read aloud from a book called Inkheart and released characters into the real world. At the same time, Meggie’s mother disappeared into the story. This “story within a story” will delight not just fantasy fans, but all readers who like an exciting plot with larger-than-life characters.