Inkheart is a great story. Reading it aloud to my ten year old meant I got to enjoy the book at a much different pace than my normal reading. We generally read a chapter a night so it has taken us a while to finish this. From my perspective, the story was very well told and and has great pacing. It allowed for development of the characters and the drama and suspension built nicely over the story. I was wondering if this was going to be a bit much for a 9 - 10year old. I think the age bracket is probably a bit older, maybe 11 or 12 (and older ) is about right. 
 This story has some violent scenes and quite a bit of violent threats being made. We laughed them off together when we read through those parts. The main character Meggie is well written and my daughter loved hearing about her, but she liked one of the villains the best. Basta, is badass and not a nice person at all. But he has some weaknesses and flaws that the author does well in bringing forth to reduce his nastiness 
 We haven't seen the movie yet, but we do already have the second book in the series ready to go. Cornelia Funke has a great writing style that makes for very easy reading aloud.