Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (The Chicken House, 2003) is about a twelve-year-old girl named Meggie who 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.

This 500 page + book captured my imagination from the first page and held onto me until a unique and satisfying ending. I read this book because my son loved it and because I have a chance to create online teacher guides for books for scholastic.com and this was my "practice" book. I normally don't like to read books that are more than 350 pages because I'm a relatively slow reader, but this one made the time just fly by!

There is some violence in this book in the form of bad guys slapping our main character across the face or a firestarter who burns his fingers, but other than that it is a great read for any child.