Christina reviewed The Book No One Ever Read by Cornelia Funke
Review of 'The Book No One Ever Read' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I'm wondering now if publishers are leaving typos and misspellings of short names in to see if anyone's reading. The Grave's a Fine and Private Place shows "Clement Atlee" twice on page 136 (tea was spilled, evidently), and the afterword by Ms. Funke in The Book No One Ever Read includes "George Elliot" as a powerful influence on her.
Ms. Funke's illustrations are comic if not immediately recognizable: I did not recognize two thirds of these authors' visages on the books, hadn't encountered names of two of them, but that's a judgment on my age and narrowness of my reading, or my fault for not reading hardcover editions where the authors' portraits grace the book jacket.
The theme I divined was that Morry yearns to be touched, to be pressed but not repressed, to be worn down with love like a Velveteen Rabbit. Morry is a children's fantasy-adventure classic (anything …
I'm wondering now if publishers are leaving typos and misspellings of short names in to see if anyone's reading. The Grave's a Fine and Private Place shows "Clement Atlee" twice on page 136 (tea was spilled, evidently), and the afterword by Ms. Funke in The Book No One Ever Read includes "George Elliot" as a powerful influence on her.
Ms. Funke's illustrations are comic if not immediately recognizable: I did not recognize two thirds of these authors' visages on the books, hadn't encountered names of two of them, but that's a judgment on my age and narrowness of my reading, or my fault for not reading hardcover editions where the authors' portraits grace the book jacket.
The theme I divined was that Morry yearns to be touched, to be pressed but not repressed, to be worn down with love like a Velveteen Rabbit. Morry is a children's fantasy-adventure classic (anything more would be a spoiler!), not as old as those so old they once longed to tell their stories.
The Book No One Ever Read is fun for the book lover for anthropomorphization of the books "as different as people," and for the illustrations, but don't expect the story to have much inner logic. As a thank-you to Ms. Funke, do read some new-to-you works from the authors listed in the afterword, but don't bother looking for "George Elliot" (what the L?). Treat very specially the young child who picks up, reads, and enjoys the philosophy of Schiller and Nietzsche, however.