Twelve-year-old Meggie, a self-proclaimed bookworm, finds it odd that her bookbinder father, Mo, has never read aloud to her. Tackling Funke's (The Thief Lord) meaty, intricately plotted tale of magic and books, Redgrave colors her reading with appropriately varying degrees of suspense, revelation and drama.

But bibliophiles will delight in a story that celebrates books (each chapter begins with a literary passage ranging from Shakespeare to Sendak), and the conclusion is especially satisfying. Thanks to Harry P., kids may not be scared off by this volume's heft, though they may wish the pacing wasn't quite so leisurely-even the novel's many chases and hostage-takings are related in a deliberate fashion.

Meggie learns that many years earlier, while Mo was reading aloud a novel called Inkheart, his voice somehow brought many of its characters-including Dustfinger and the evil despot Capricorn-'slipping out of their story like a bookmark forgotten by some reader between the pages.' Now Dustfinger (who longs to return to his fictional origins) wants Mo to read him back into the book, while Capricorn (who likes it here just fine) wants Mo to use his powers to read gold and riches out of stories such as Treasure Island and summon a malevolent, immortal character called the Shadow from the pages of Inkheart. 11/02), twelve-year-old Meggie and her father Mo live in a house overflowing with 'small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin, books old and new.' But it's one particular book that brings a stranger named Dustfinger to their house one rainy spring night. (Intermediate, Middle School) Who hasn't dreamed of it-characters leaping from the pages of a book to interact with the reader? Or, better yet, the reader transported-quite literally-into the make-believe world of a novel? In this tale of adventure and fantasy by the author of The Thief Lord (rev.

Inkheart novel