Product Description

Small and insignificant Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. Through the pages of an old book he discovers a mysterious world of enchantment - but a world that is falling into decay. The great task of making things well again falls on Bastian and so begins a dazzling, magical adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7206 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-29
• Original language: German
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 445 pages

Review
'A rich, enjoyable read... Succeeds by drawing in the most potent elements of fairytales, myth, and invented fantasy.' The Observer 'A trumpet blast for the imagination.' Sunday Times

About the Author
Michael Ende was one of the most popular German authors of the 20th Century, captivating children with his extraordinary fantasy stories including Momo, an orphan girl's search for the meaning of time. The NeverEnding Story (1979) has been translated into more than 30 languages, made into a hit movie in 1984, and remains a much-loved, international bestseller.

Customer Reviews

A gem of a book!
This book deserves to be a classic. I remember reading it as a child thinking it was the best thing I had ever read. Now as an adult I still find it captivating. It's full of adventure and fantasy, most of all how one small child can make a difference in a world of imagination and dreams where "small" matters. For those of you who have seen the film adaptations and were put off, I would recommend you read the book. It's far better and far more encompassing. Michael Ende is one of those authors who you come across by surprise, enticing you with page after page of really good writing until eventually you wish the book really was neverending.

An excellent story, one that can be read again and again
It is unfortunate that a movie was made out of this book, because it really takes away from it! This is a wonderful, original story - a boy named Bastian steals a book called "The Neverending Story" from a bookshop and hides himself in the schoolhouse attic to read it. The book he has stolen is about the magical world of Fantastica, a world that is interconnected with its ruler (the Childlike Empress); but she is dying, and Fantastica is dying with her. As he reads on, Bastian gets slowly more and more drawn into the book, until the two worlds begin to overlap...
The style of the book is clever and elegant. It is easy to distinguish the parts set in Fantastica from the parts set in the schoolhouse, for the parts in the schoolhouse are written in italics. The ideas are original (I love the idea of the "nothing" that engulfs Fantastica - you can't even see it properly because there is nothing to see) and nothing else I have ever read rivals it for ingenuity. Though the book is not particularly long, so much happens in it that by the time you reach the end you feel as if you have been reading it for years. The broad outline of the story that I gave only covers the first part of the book, I can't write any more because I don't want to spoil the story. It is also humourous and gives the reader a few things to think about, though not in an obvious way - the morals are there to be picked up if you happen to notice them. It is an absolute classic, and I would unhesitatingly recommend it to anybody who loves a really good fantasy novel. Just please do not watch the movies.

An Adult-sized Fairy Tale
Until recently, I was blissfully ignorant that the popular movie I had seen several times (in my younger days) was actually based on a book.

Judging from the cover illustration of Bastian Balthazar Bux doing his "King of the World" thing aboard the Luck Dragon, you get the feeling that this is no ordinary fantasy book, and indeed it isn't.

I did get the feeling that some aspects of the story were lost in translation (which is another story altogether), as it has some abrupt swings in tone, the dialogue sometimes seeming clumsy and childish compared to the rest of the book - but that's nitpicking.

This is truly a Neverending Story, most of which springs from the imagination of the unlikely human hero, the aforementioned Master Bux, who steals the titular tome, and flees with it to the safety of his school attic, where he becomes much more than a casual onlooker of the worlds of Fantastica.

Michael Ende's imagination works overtime in creating Fantastica and all its inhabitants, and for each thrilling chapter, he introduces another story to be told at another time.

The main story however, is the metamorphosis of Bastian Bux from a frightened, insecure child, and the new relationship he was able to forge with his father after his great learning adventure.

Be wary in your reading of the adventures of The Childlike Empress, Atreyu, Morla, Ygramul, Falkor, Grograman, Hero Hynreck and Xayide, among others, beware the Nothing, and be careful what you wish for, least you also become a part of the Neverending Story, and forever lose your memories of this life.

Amanda Richards