Inkdeath
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Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration by Helen Oxenbury is from Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox (Walker, 978 1 4063 1592 9, £10.99 hbk). Helen Oxenbury writes about her illustration here. Thanks to Walker Books for their help with this January cover.
Inkdeath
Anthea Bell
The trilogy set in Inkworld operates as a metaphor for the power of reading – the manner via which words record our individual histories and accordingly determine the futures available to us. Rarely can this have been summarised with the eloquence and articulation shown in Inkdeath.
Expanding from Meggie’s viewpoint which has been central to the previous two novels, Inkheart and Inkspell, the novel pans from a standpoint that allows much greater vistas of this world and of the motivations of the various characters who inhabit it.
With Fenoglio no longer able to write, the rules that once structured Inkworld have vanished leaving the environs lawless, a situation used to advantage when its children are held hostage. In its struggles to revert to more ordered existence, Inkdeath is a multi-layered, richly textured conclusion to the trilogy, pulling on literary allusions and conventions. These are pooled in a novel that succeeds in being at once action-packed and highly thought-provoking – a real treat!