The Neverending Story

Michael Ende

Fantasy

This novel begins with the hero, Bastian Balthazar Bux, he steals a book and hides in the school attic to dive into. He has an unhappy life, and wants to escape it. So he ends up skipping class after getting caught up in the story. The book is about a place named Fantastica, and the Nothings are trying to conquer it. Atreyu and his friend Falkor and other amazing characters search for a way to stop the Nothings, but they can’t find anything to stop them. Only a human can save Fantastica by believing in the book and the place called fantastica. They would become the Childlike empress.

            Bastian becomes this hero, he believes and goes inside the novel. He creates the book by his wishes for the next half of the novel. When he does this, he finds himself making foolish and selfish wishes. When he realizes this, he decides to return to his former world where he returns the stolen book, and returns home to his father.

This novel has far too many action scenes to summarize. The imagery and story are fantastic. I remember reading this as a child and thinking it would be so cool to go inside a book like Bastian did. I think this would be a cool book for older children to read and do a project over. Maybe children could even write their own story about entering inside one of their own favorite books. I think this book is good for children about 5^th to 8^th grade.