Inkheart / Inkspell / Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke

Funke's Inkworld is filled with prolific details and elements that allow her to spin her story out over almost two thousand pages, keeping it compelling and intriguing from start to finish. Most of the characters in this story go by more than one name. Instead, Funke peppers her story with Italian sounding names for people and places, as well as exoctic nicknames. Cornelia Funke infuses creates a complete world, like Tolkein and Rowling do, although without a fabricated language or wizarding vocabulary. The basic plot elements of this story - I will henceforth refer to all three books in the singular - are so brilliant, like Michael Buckley's series, The Sisters Grimm, I wish I had thought of them myself. This trilogy is a landmark in children's literature, what Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy is to the genre of fantasy writing. Now that the movie of Inkheart is about to open, I am sure sales of the books will surge, and well they should. Despite the length of these books, kids are buying them and, I think actually reading them. Since Inkheart was published in 2003 and released in paperback in 2005, I have been constantly re-stocking the shelves with it whenever I work. As Dwight Garner noted in the New York Times in January of 2005, Funke's Inkworld Trilogy books are always in the top five of the Children's Series bestseller list, despite the fact that books in translation by living writers rarely make it onto this list. Funke is hugely popular in Germany and acquired an English publisher when a bilingual child sent a letter to Barry Cunningham at The Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic, asking why her favorite German author was not available to read in English. Her illustrations appear at every the chapter start and she has also written and illustrated several picture books for children.

Funke was a social worker, educator and eventually children's book illustrator before she began writing her own books. Funke is a native German now living in Los Angeles and all three books in the trilogy are translated by Anthea Bell.

Inkheart, Inkspell and Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke comprise the Inkworld Trilogy, which Funke (pronounced FOONK-eh and also the German word for 'spark') completed in October of 2008.

Inkheart / Inkspell / Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke