Reading and writing are skills that are strongly a part of human life. With them we consider ourselves “intelligent”, ranking ourselves higher on the chain of mammals than our fellow animals. We use writing as a way to express our thoughts to people who aren’t around us, or whom we normally share our thoughts. Because of this long distance communication became a thing, letting scientist to communicate giving us amazing things that we take for granted today like medicine, technology, and what we know about the world around us. Yes writing and reading has helped us greatly in life, it can also be the ends of others.

For Meggie it has always been her and Mo. Her father Mortimer, but goes by Mo, was a book binder living in Europe. Mo and Meggie barely stayed at the same house for more than a year, as Mo is constantly moving, and is always taking his daughter with him. Meggie’s mother “left” when Meggie was three, so she never got a chance to even know her mother, and Mo is not up to talking about her, always changing the conversation when Meggie brought up Tresa, her mother. When a strange man with a scared face showed up at the farmhouse one night, Meggie’s life was going to change drastically.

Reading out loud to your children is a classic thing to do. Reading your kids bedtime stories, choosing a novel and spend several evening reading the child a chapter per night. Yet Mo had never done that. Their life full of books, from the ones blocking the doorways, to the ones in Mo study. Meggie has read over a thousand book in her short life, but never once had Mo read her a story. The sacred man explained why as Mo had the talent when he reads out loud that he brings characters out of the story. That how he, Dustfinger, along with two villains Capricorn and Basta came into their life, and how Meggie mother, Teresa, and their two cats disappeared, as what is read out of the book, had to be replaced. Mo spent days trying to read his wife out, it wasn’t until the mailman went missing, that Mo realize that he couldn’t bring her back. Dustfinger came to warn Mo that Basta and Capricorn were looking for him, and the last copy of the story they came from, Inkheart. Mo, desperate to keep the last copy, and the last chance to ever get his wife back, and chose to fight then flight.

Cornelia Funke did an amazing job on this novel! The storyline was captivating, making you never wanting to put the book down. The story about a bookbinder and his daughter, a loud mouth aunt, a homesick stranger, and villains making you believe in this fantasy story, wishing it was real. The character development was low, but because this is the first of three, hopefully they will develop more. Mo and Meggie’s story hit the big screens in 2008 as Inkheart première starring Brendan Fraser as Mo and Eliza Bennett as Meggie. The story gave you great detail about the world around them, and gave you information about the original Inkheart story. With love, fear, and family driving this story forward, it seems that life is nothing more than just ink on paper.