Have you ever watched "The Neverending Story"? Classic film. To many of us, including me, it is a childhood gem and one of the greatest children's movies of all time. Like most of you after you read this review, I was shocked when I found out it was a book first. Written by Michael Ende in 1979, "The Neverending Story," was originally published in Ende's home country of Germany, and the English translated version was published in 1983. Based on what I read, the movie only adapted the first half of the book, with a whole new adventure taking place afterwards, so there will be spoilers.

The main character is Bastian Baltazar Bux, a young boy who suffers grief from the death of his mother, the poor parenting of a good natured, but seemingly emotionally detached father and bullying by local school boys. One day, while hiding from his tormentors, Bastian hides in a bookstore where he comes across the book titled, "The Neverending Story." He then locks himself in the school attic to read it. As he reads the book, we do as well. Kind of like Inception, we read a book within a book.

The book itself tells the story of the magical world, Fantastica which is being destroyed by a force known as the Nothing. At the same time, The Child-like Empress who rules Fantastica has fallen Ill and her illness seems to be linked to the apocalyptic crisis occurring. She assigns a young warrior, Atreyu, with the task of destroying the Nothing. Throughout this plotline, the perspective alternates between the real world with Bastian and the fantasy world with Atreyu.

As Atreyu makes his journey, he learns that the only way to destroy the Nothing, is for a human child to give the Child-like Empress a name. This is where Bastian comes in. Throughout the first half, every time Bastian reacts to a certain even he's read, it echoes onto the pages of the book, so when he screams, those in the book can hear him. He names the Childlike Empress, Moonchild. This doesn't only save Fantastica at the last minute, but it also teleports Bastian into the book, beginning the second half the book.

Now Bastian is tasked with restoring Fantastica, this is done by his ability to create stories as Fantasitca is fueled by the imagination of humans. However, he is unaware that every story he creates, causes him to loose a memory of the real world. At first he does a good job restoring Fantastica and even improves it In some places, however, as he gains more and more followers, it begins to feed his ego and he goes from an innocent young boy to a power hungry warrior. Without giving away details, he looses many allies and he begins to decline in strength as he looses more memories of the human world. If you want to know what happens, then you'll have to get the book for yourself.

Michael Ende did an amazing job describing Fantastica and the creatures that inhabit it. Like most fantasy writers, he can paint a mental picture of the world he created using only words. There were one or two occasions where he had to outright talk down to the reader about Fantastica, in violation of, "Show don't tell," which includes:

1. Bastian doesn't only have the ability to make his story's come true, but so they always have been true.

2. Fantastica always changes based on the subconscious of the person traveling through, meaning if you wanted to go somewhere, then you can just set off in a random direction, but if you secretly wanted to arrive somewhere else, then you would end up there instead.

I also give Ende credit for his efforts to visualize the Nothing, but I can't help but feel he put himself into a corner to describe something that isn't there.

The characters are very well written, Bastian actually has both likable and unlikeable traits that make him more realistic as character. He does getting annoying at times, but I don't know any children who aren't annoying. Throughout the story Bastian learns more about who he is as a person, his flaws do work against him in the story and learns how to overcome obstacles that he faces in the real world, making this a coming of age story as well as fantasy.

But the biggest theme is the concept itself, that our imaginations really are a never-ending story. Just because a book ends, doesn't mean the story has to. We create the worlds of literature with out own imagination, its more than just words on a page, its something we created and see in our minds, and the Nothing is the destruction of that world because less people are making stories and reading books. (And this book was written before video games were even thought of, so Ende understood this.) This is a message that can only be delivered in a book, I know that's what the message of the film was trying to convey, but it was contradicting itself on the fact of just being film. This book might just encourage more kids to read; to create their own worlds and stories.

You can obviously tell that I loved this book. This has to be the deepest children's book I have ever read. I highly recommend this book, not only for kids, but adults as well. It's a deep story that we can all learn from, its a beautiful concept we embrace without even knowing it, and this is a world so creative. I can't compare it to any other fantasy story I've read. If you are looking for an interesting take on the fantasy genre, then this is worth the read.

But these are just my opinions. Have you read the book? If so, did you love it? Comment below and have a great week!