Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

A story about a young girl Meggie who is devoted to books and her father, who she calls Mo, who hides a secret about the disappearance of her mother 9 years earlier. They live in a remote farmhouse surrounded by books until the arrival of the mysterious Dustfinger and his oddly horned marten Gwin which hurls her into a world where fantasy and reality begin to bleed into each other. I loved the internal references to other classic and modern children's fiction but found the plot a bit repetitive and dry.