If you’re reading this blog, you likely know what it’s like to get lost in a book: to read so deeply and intently that you lose track of time, forgetting to eat or go to sleep. The characters in the books listed here have an altogether different problem: they literally get lost in books. By choice or by chance, they open a book and travel inside its pages, becoming a part of the story – and perhaps changing it.
I was prompted to write this booklist by the announcement of Shannon Hale’s new book, Kind of a Big Deal, which features this trope. While it’s one I feel is pretty familiar to most readers, I struggled to find many middle grade or young adult books that focused on it. Perhaps the popularity of Inkheart in the early 2000s has misled me as to how widespread the trope is. I found plenty of books featuring characters from books visiting our world, but only four titles where someone in our world visits the book’s world (or, like Inkheart, where they can do both). Do you know of any others?
Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book by Jennifer Donnelly
Smart, bookish Belle, a captive in the Beast’s castle, has become accustomed to her new home and has befriended its inhabitants. When she comes upon Nevermore, an enchanted book unlike anything else she has seen in the castle, Belle finds herself pulled into its pages and transported to a world of glamour and intrigue. The adventures Belle has always imagined, the dreams she was forced to give up when she became a prisoner, seem within reach again.
The charming and mysterious characters Belle meets within the pages of Nevermore offer her glamorous conversation, a life of dazzling Parisian luxury, and even a reunion she never thought possible. Here Belle can have everything she has ever wished for. But what about her friends in the Beast’s castle? Can Belle trust her new companions inside the pages of Nevermore? Is Nevermore’s world even real? Belle must uncover the truth about the book, before she loses herself in it forever.
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
12 year-old Meggie lives with her father, Mortimer, a bookbinder. Mo never reads stories aloud to Meggie because he has a special gift: when he reads a book aloud, the characters come out of the book and into the real world.
One night, when Meggie was a small child, Mortimer was reading aloud from a book named Inkheart when an evil villain named Capricorn, his aide Basta, and a fire-eater named Dustfinger escape from the book and into their living room. At the same time, Mo’s wife Resa gets trapped within the book.
Twelve years later, Capricorn is on a hunt to find and destroy all copies of Inkheart and use Mo’s abilities to gain more power for himself in the real world. Meggie discovers her father’s secret and, along with the help of Dustfinger and Meggie’s eccentric aunt Elinor, fights to free her father and destroy Capricorn.
The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser
Amy Lennox doesn’t know quite what to expect when she and her mother pick up and leave Germany for Scotland, heading to her mother’s childhood home of Lennox House on the island of Stormsay.
Amy’s grandmother, Lady Mairead, insists that Amy must read while she resides at Lennox House—but not in the usual way. It turns out that Amy is a book jumper, able to leap into a story and interact with the world inside. As thrilling as Amy’s new power is, it also brings danger: someone is stealing from the books she visits, and that person may be after her life. Teaming up with fellow book jumper Will, Amy vows to get to the bottom of the thefts—at whatever cost.
Kind of a Big Deal by Shannon Hale
From bestselling author Shannon Hale comes Kind of a Big Deal: a hilarious, deliciously readable YA novel that will suck you in—literally.
There’s nothing worse than peaking in high school. Nobody knows that better than Josie Pie.
She was kind of a big deal—she dropped out of high school to be a star! But the bigger you are, the harder you fall. And Josie fell. Hard. Ouch. Broadway dream: dead.
Meanwhile, her life keeps imploding. Best friend: distant. Boyfriend: busy. Mom: not playing with a full deck? Desperate to escape, Josie gets into reading.
Literally. She reads a book and suddenly she’s inside it. And with each book, she’s a different character: a post-apocalyptic heroine, the lead in a YA rom-com, a 17th century wench in a corset.
It’s alarming. But also . . . kind of amazing?
It’s the perfect way to live out her fantasies. Book after book, Josie the failed star finds a new way to shine. But the longer she stays in a story, the harder it becomes to escape.
Will Josie find a story so good that she just stays forever?