Profile: Cornelia Funke

When German author Cornelia Funke sat down to write the main character for the book that would become “Inkheart,” she had someone in mind: Brendan Fraser. Looking for inspiration, she noticed her young son watching “the Mummy” over and over and was impressed with Fraser’s range. “He is very funny sometimes and very melancholy,” she says.

But casting Fraser in the eventual adaptation, Funke learned quickly, was not so easy. “When I said to the studio, ‘I know who the leading man is,’ they didn’t like that,” she jokes. Even Fraser, who had become a close friend since the publication of “Inkheart,” cautioned her to be more flexible, warning that the project could collapse if she continued to insist on casting him. But Funke wouldn’t be deterred. “Of course I had to do it. I’m old-fashioned in that. Then the movie doesn’t happen, so what?”

That cavalier attitude comes from a very successful career — Time magazine dubbed her the “German J.K. Rowling” in 2005 — with many adaptations of her work under her belt. “[‘Inkheart’] is the sixth movie they’ve done from my books,” Funke admits. “I’ve had hundreds of theater productions, children playing them in schools. I’ve seen puppets do my work. A movie cannot be worse.”

Funke came late to writing, starting her career as a social worker. And as a child, she wanted to be an astronaut. “I would never have thought I could do such a magical thing as write a book,” she says. And “Inkheart” was in part created for book lovers like her. “I wrote it as a love song to book-ophiles like me. I wrote them for that rare breed that can’t live without piles of books next to their bed.”

When it comes to these kids today losing interest in books, Funke doesn’t understand the concern, pointing out that when she was a young girl, she stood out for being a book lover. “There were maybe two other children who were passionate about books. The others thought books were boring and want to touch them,” she recounts. “There weren’t these ferocious readers that everybody now says we lost.”

Funke insists that kids have always needed to be encouraged to read, just like today. “You have to show them that a book can be a beautiful thing,” she says, but is quick to add that there are other media through which children express themselves.

“Our children tell their stories in movies or through TV, in games and in videos,” she says. “That is their way of storytelling.” The important thing is to encourage creativity, wherever it pops up. “We have to teach them to do it actively. If they then find their way back to books, that solitary place where they can create their own worlds, wonderful. But we can’t keep saying books are good thing and all other things are bad, because they will always go for the bad things.”