The Neverending Story.

By Michael Ende.

Synopsis:
Bastion, a small, fat, lonely and generally unhappy little boy steals a book from a bookshop and skives off school to read it. As he reads he begins to identify with the book's hero, Atreyu.

Review:
I liked the first part of this book much better than the second. The first part is a miracle of structuring, blending the world of Fantastica (or Fantasia, if you're watching the film) with that of the 'real world', and beginning to make them come together... The second part, unfortunately, focuses on Bastion, who (in my humble opinion) is completely unlikeable. Of course I could just be saying that because I'm jealous of his ability to find names for things, which I admit I'm terrible at.

Anyway... Thoroughly recommended. Much more deep and meaningful than most fantasy, especially that aimed at a younger audience, which this seems to be. By that I mean when people die, they stay dead. And when things go wrong, it isn't easy to put right. More kids books should do this.

This book has the dubious honour of being one the (very) few that I would recommend seeing the movie of first. The book is lacking in general description, but I put that down to translation problems. And the movie is damn beautiful.