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The arrival late one night of a mysterious stranger sets off alarm bells in twelve-year old Meggie’s head. But Mo, her gentle bookbinder father, lets the odd little man into their farmhouse and sends his daughter back to bed. Instead, she listens at the door while Dustfinger, for that is the stranger’s name, warns her father that Capricorn is closing in and urges him to give himself up rather than be captured.
Early the next morning Mo awakens Meggie and tells her to get dressed while he finishes packing. As they are leaving the farmhouse, Dustfinger appears, pack in hand, and asks for a ride, reminding Mo, when he hesitates, that he wants to avoid meeting Capricorn every bit as much as Meggie’s father. Soon the three are settled into Mo’s old camper van heading south toward the home of Elinor, Meggie’s mother’s aunt. Meggie asks her father about this Capricorn, who seems determined to find Mo. Dustfinger is surprised she doesn’t know, and, over her father’s objections, tells her that Capricorn is the kind of man who spreads fear like the plague and who enjoys taking what he wants from those own it. And Mo has something that Capricorn wants, a book.
Elinor lives with her books in a large house surrounded by park land. Obsessed by the pursuit, acquisition and protection of rare, beautiful and valuable books, Elinor welcomes Mo’s arrival, eager to set him to work on rebinding worn volumes, putting them in “new dresses”. Mo gives the book that Capricorn is hunting into Elinor’s safe keeping, and asks her to hide it. He warns the older woman that he has read numerous reports of copies of this book being stolen from book dealers and collectors.
Meggie is filled with curiosity about Elinor, this aunt whom she has never before met nor heard of, relative to her mother who left on a long adventure when she was three and who has never been heard from since. Mo has told his daughter many stories about her mother, stories she thinks he might have invented just like the fairy tales he created for her when she was small. When asked, he says that, to his knowledge, his wife is alive but simply not able to come home.
Instead of taking off when they reach Elinor’s, Dustfinger lingers, creeping around the house and gardens, and whispering questions to Meggie about Mo’s plans for the book. A gifted juggler and fire-eater, Dustfinger invites Meggie to an evening performance on the lawn outside the house.
During that performance, Capricorn’s men break into Elinor’s house, capture Mo and threaten to find and harm Meggie, forcing him to reveal the hiding place of the book. As Elinor restrains Meggie from running to her father and keeps them from being detected, Capricorn’s men put Mo into the back of their car and drive away.
Meggie is devastated by her father’s capture and determined to go looking for him. Overwhelmed by her grief, Dustfinger and Elinor try to comfort her by telling the girl that Mo will soon be released. Then Meggie discovers Elinor reading the book, the one that Capricorn’s men had come in search of, and realizes that her great-aunt had switched the book for another of about the same size and shape, and that neither Mo nor his kidnappers noticed the substitution. When Dustfinger learns of the switch, he admits that he might know where Mo has been taken, and offers to lead Meggie there. Elinor insists on accompanying the girl and the little fire-eater, and soon the three unlikely accomplices find themselves driving up a narrow winding road toward the abandoned village that Capricorn has made his base.
The search for Mo and the book turns out to be far more dangerous and complicated than Meggie could ever have imagined, for it seems that Mo possesses a talent for reading that is both wonderful and frightening, a talent that Capricorn intends to use for his own evil ends.
Beautifully written by acclaimed German children’s author Cornelia Funke, Inkheart is an adventure fantasy about the magic and power of books. Published in 2003, it is already a classic of children’s literature, one is bound to capture the imagination of students from grade 5.
FernFolio Editor