'Inkheart' Comes to an Emotional End

Cornelia Funke Hopes the Conclusion of Her Trilogy Can Prepare Kids for Life's Sorrows

It might surprise you to learn that Cornelia Funke doesn't want all her young fans reading her newest book, "Inkdeath."

"I always meant it for an older audience," said the German-born writer, who lives in California. "Inkdeath" is the last book in her "Inkheart" trilogy.

"I think children should start with 'Inkheart' when they're about 8, move on to 'Inkspell' when they're 11 and wait until they're 13 for 'Inkdeath,' " she says.

The trilogy tells the story of a girl named Meggie and her father, Mo, who share the unusual talent of being able to read themselves into stories. It's as magical as it sounds, but the outcomes aren't always the stuff of fairy tales.

When Mo reads from a book called "Inkheart," some characters wind up in Meggie and Mo's world and some, specifically Meggie's mother, wind up in the Ink World.

Funke called the first book, which wasn't originally intended to be part of a series, "a love letter to all those readers as enchanted by books as I am." When "Inkheart" became a huge success and Funke realized she had more that she wanted the characters to do and say, she wrote "Inkspell," which had a cliffhanger ending.

Readers delighted by Funke's fantasy world, with its horrible villains and fire-dancing heroes, have been eagerly awaiting the final installment.

So why is Funke warning young readers off? Well, the title gives a big hint. Death is a major theme in this book, and its plot and themes are more complicated than those of the earlier books.

"I have had 8- or 9-year-olds come up to me at book signings and tell me how much they love the book," Funke says. "So I don't want to say that no children that age can read it and understand it." But she says she prefers to think of the book as a way for older children to prepare for life's inevitable sorrows.

What happens in "Inkdeath," she says, "is a shadow of what will come in life. They can practice on the pages."

Funke, 49, knows about sadness. Her husband, the father of her two children, died just before she finished the book.

"What I wanted to show is my concept of death. I was never in my life afraid of death," she says. "What's really hard is the loss of those we love. How can we live with the fact that we may lose the most precious things we know in life? We never really lose them. . . . They become layers of our heart."

The end of "Inkdeath" leaves open the possibility that Funke will return to the Ink World one day, but what she's really excited about is another series of books she's working on, featuring a character she calls Jacob Wreckless. The books start out in the real world but move quickly into the realm of fairy tales and gingerbread houses.

And for the youngest Funke fans not ready for "Inkdeath," there's a long list of titles meant just for them. At the top of her list, and ours, is "Dragon Rider."

-- Tracy Grant