Sunday, February 24, 2008

Books Carrying the Whole World

"What on earth have you packed in here? Bricks?" asked Mo as he carried Meggie's book box out of the house.

"You're the one who says books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them," said Meggie, making him laugh for the first time that morning.

-- Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, page 19

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So does this mean you think Inkheart is okay? I'm one of those looking forward to Books for Kids who love to read. I have a 6 yo (homeschooled) boy who can read fairly well (don't know grade levels, but he recently read some Henry and Ribsy books, Charlotte's Web, etc.), but it's hard finding stuff not too mature and sometimes scary. Any help on the matter (even if it's in 2 years!) will be appreciated.

And thanks so much for the blog!

chris
csclancy@earthlink.net

Maureen said...

Hi Chris!

I'm only about 1/3 of the way through Inkheart and love it so far. I came across that quote and couldn't pass it up. In the future, I'll refrain from doing that until I've read the whole book. I didn't even think about people taking it as a recomendation. Sorry about that!

With all that said, many of my trusted Catholic homeschooling friends highly recommended this book to me. They all love it!

I should have it done in a day or two. It's a hard one to put done. Except Teen Daughter 2 keeps grabbing it everytime I put it down for a second!

Now, I'm told that Inkspell, the sequel, is a different story. While it is just as engaging it does have some profanity. Enough to make the book questionable, especially for younger kids. I'm planning on reading that one too, as I think it's important to know what the sequel contains before giving a blanket endorsement of the first book.

Maureen said...

I'm more than 3/4 of the way through Inkheart. I would say it's definitely not for a 6-year old, even a well-read, advanced 6-year old.

It's an interesting story. I'm a little disappointed so far. Perhaps because it got so much hype that I was expecting more from it.

It is a very interesting plotline, and I have a hard time putting it down. However, I'm finding too many moments when I want to take my editor's red pen to it. (An annoying habit I have :-)) Nothing too major, just very minor rewrites. Perhaps because it's translated from German.