“The forces that brought you the Harry Potter films are locked in a titanic struggle with the powers behind the Lord of the Rings series for the services of a woman hailed as the new J.K. Rowling.

Her name is Cornelia Funke, a 44-year-old German mother of two, who is taking children’s literature by storm. Championed by Barry Cunningham, the man who ‘discovered’ Rowling, Funke has sold half a million copies of her detective story, The Thief Lord, which spent 25 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won several awards.

Her new book, Inkheart, the first part of a trilogy, promises to be even bigger. So big that Heyday Films, which produced the Harry Potter movies, is slugging it out with New Line Cinema, the company behind the Lord of the Rings series, for the rights to the big-screen version of Funke’s stories.” —Guardian.UK