Ein Meer aus Tinte und Gold

Traci Chee's The Reader (published in German as Ein Meer aus Tinte und Gold, translated by Sylke Hachmeister) opens the Sea of Ink and Gold trilogy. After her father is murdered, Sefia escapes with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. When Nin is kidnapped, Sefia is left alone with only one clue to both disappearances: a strange rectangular object her father left behind, which she slowly realizes is a book — an object unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society.

Teaching herself to read, Sefia discovers the book is full of stories, including tales of the swashbuckling Captain Reed and his crew sailing the seas of Kelanna. After rescuing Archer, a boy so traumatized by forced fighting-pit matches that he has lost the ability to speak, she begins reading to him — and the two are drawn together into a wider legend that turns out to be more real than either of them expected.