As much as you’d like to, you can’t visit Hogwarts – or Narnia, or Middle Earth. But you can go to Venice, which is why Cornelia Funke set her best-selling book, “The Thief Lord,” in the land of canals and pigeons.

“I hoped that if children liked it, they would go there,” she says. “Then I worried, what if I felt the magic, but the children didn’t?”

No worries. Not only did many of her readers (and their parents) fall in love with Venice – they sent photos of themselves in St. Mark’s Square, waving her book.

Now Funke (pronounced Foon-kay) has another best-seller: “Inkheart,” the first in a trilogy about Meggie, a 12-year-old girl who brings fictional characters to life – and unwittingly unleashes a villain in her living room.

Movie studios are already scrambling to film it. (“The Thief Lord” starts shooting in the spring.)

But Funke, 45, is very picky.

“The producers say Mike Myers or Jim Carrey and I almost threw down the phone,” she tells The Post.

“They’re brilliant actors, but they don’t fit the part.”

She says she wrote Mo, Meggie’s father, with just one actor in mind – and that’s Brendan Fraser.

“I sent him the book and I got the most enchanting letter back, with a picture of his little son,” she says. “He wrote, ‘I promise I’ll read it to him as soon as he’s old enough.’ “

She only hopes the filmmakers will follow her lead.

“If they do a movie that crushes the imagination, I’ll never forgive myself,” she declares. “You write a book you’re passionate about and they spoil it!”

Funke is passionate, period. Growing up in a small town in Germany (“a place you’re a little bit bored by all the time”), she’d make up stories for her younger brothers and sister – mostly tales about “Star Trek,” her favorite TV show.

She loved to draw and paint, but decided to save the world instead – becoming a social worker for troubled kids. But her urge to draw got stronger, and she became an illustrator for children’s books.

Bored by the stories she had to illustrate, she says, “I suddenly sat down and became a writer.”

Seventeen years and 40 books later, she’s still at it. Not only does she write the stories, but she illustrates them, too. And her first readers are her children – Anna, 13, and Benji, 8 – who, she says, “find all my mistakes.”

All three of them are Harry Potter fans, too.She recently took them both, along with her husband Rolf, to England, where “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” is being filmed.

“It will be brilliant,” she promises, “the best Harry Potter movie ever!”

Last year, for Anna’s birthday, mother and daughter went to the Paris premiere of “The Lord of the Rings.”

“We walked down the red carpet together, behind the hobbits,” Funke says happily.

“To give your girl such a birthday, that’s wonderful!”

Real kids critique

Asked whether they’d take either of Cornelia Funke or Jonathan Stroud’s books over the next J.K. Rowling, all three of The Post’s reviewers said pretty much the same thing: “No way!”

Nevertheless, using a rating of one to four stars – the more stars, the better – they gave the new books high marks for imagination. Here’s what else they told us about “Inkheart” and “The Amulet of Samarkand,” Book 1 of the Bartimaeus trilogy.

– Barbara Hoffman

Kathleen Wickman, 12, Bayside, Queens

“I really liked ‘Inkheart’ – I didn’t want to put it down. Meggie does something I’ve wished I could do: meet characters from all these books.

“The Jonathan Stroud book was pretty cool as well. It kept switching prespectives between the genie and the kid.

“I think ‘Inkheart’ is in the same league as Harry Potter. Anybody who loves Harry would love this book as well.”

Rating: “Inkheart”

“Bartimaeus”

Chris Paulison, 13, Demarest, N.J.

“I thought ‘The Bartimaeus Trilogy’ was excellent. I definitely want to read more. It’s a completely different book from the Harry Potter ones, with more real-world things. It seemed the British government was made up of wizards.

“It takes ‘Inkheart’ a while before it gets interesting – the first 50 or so pages are a little boring, and I think low-level readers might get deterred by that. But after that, it’s really good.

“It’s hard to say which is better, but I think enjoyed ‘Inkheart’ more.”

Rating: “Inkheart”

“Bartimaeus”

Catherine Zini, 12, Stroudsburg, Pa.

“I liked Cornelia’s book better. I didn’t really like any of the characters in Jonathan Stroud’s book. I thought it was kind of dark, though the genie’s clever and funny.

“In ‘Inkheart,’ I liked Meggie. She’s 12, my age, and she reminded me of me. She likes books and she has imagination.

“It’s exciting – but not as exciting as the Harry Potter books.”

Rating: “Inkheart”

“Bartimaeus” 1/2