The Bookshelf: Between the Lines

“Between the Lines” by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer tells the story of unpopular high schooler Delilah McPhee.

Delilah’s life is completely ordinary until she finds a one-of- a-kind children’s fantasy book. Delilah memorizes every bit of the dialogue and illustrations after reading numerous times.

One day, Delilah notices something that wasn’t in one of the illustrations before. Next thing she knows, she is talking to the main character – a handsome prince named Oliver.

Within the book, the characters live their own lives when no one is reading. The characters are nothing more than actors when a reader has the book open, but once it is closed they can be themselves.

The characters’ true selves are sometimes completely different than their roles in the story. While most of the characters are fine with repeating the same story, Oliver is not. He wants out of the book and he wants Delilah’s help in doing so. This leads to a magical adventure as Delilah and Oliver try to get the latter into the former’s world, and where Delilah and Oliver realize that they have fallen in love with each other.

Much of the plot of “Between the Lines” involves the challenges Delilah and Oliver face during their journey to accomplish the impossible and make a fictional character real.