book review the neverending story

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

The Neverending story is one of those films that truly made a major difference to my childhood. Though I was too young to watch it upon its first 1984 release, my junior school showed it in 1987 or so when I was five (I had a very nice junior school). I remember it distinctly as one of the films that really scared me, but at the same time equally fascinated. The idea of a world inside books was, for an avid reader like myself, perfectly logical, but this was not a nice friendly world of pixies and elves but a world of deadly dangers and fearful monsters. After all, for a child and indeed for an adult who hasn't completely lost all sense of wonder, each book really is another world which can be explored and understood, a world which is at the same time more beautiful and more terrible than the world we live in.

I did not read Michael Ende's original novel until a good while later, indeed about 12 years later, and rather fittingly for a film which was so profoundly imprinted on my consciousness, it is also the first book I have read specifically with the idea of writing a review in mind.

Plot wise the elements that made the film unique are all very much present, albeit the film takes up quite literally the first half of the novel. A young boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux is chased by bullies into a book shop where he steals a book called The Neverending story. The plot then fluctuates from Bastian in an attic reading the book to the tale of Atreyu, a young hunter being sent on a journey to save the land of Fantastica and its ruler, the mysterious Childlike Empress, from the encroaching Nothing that is rapidly making Fantastica vanish.

Eventually it is revealed that Fantastica is actually the land of human dreams and fantasy, and that the only way to save it from the Nothing is for a human child to enter Fantastica and give the Childlike Empress a new name, then revitalize the country with their wishes and dreams. At this point (after a little existential prevarication), Bastian is dragged into Fantastica and gifted the mystical Auryn by the Childlike Empress, a symbol of her power inscribed with the words "do what you wish", which had previously accompanied Atreyu on his quest.

I was quite amazed up to this point just how true to the book the film had been, with the exception of a few monsters who I suspect were cut for reasons of visual effects budget, and extremely pleased that the underlying philosophy of Fantastica was revealed in far more detail. Indeed one of the definite high points for me was Atreyu's confrontation with Gmork the Werewolf, in which Gmork revealed that the Nothing was not merely human apathy and loss of interest in fantasy, but that the things and people consumed by it were transported to the human world as lies or delusions, which the powerful were able to use to subvert the beliefs of others. This is a wonderful idea, since who hasn't seen their favourite book or film characters cheapened to speak a particular rhetorical message by some literary critic or used only as a way to fill the pockets of the wealthy.

I also appreciated the dark hints Gmork gave that he was free to travel between Fantastica and the human world, and that there were powers interested in the destruction of Fantastica.

Up until this point I was absolutely loving the book, the language and descriptions were short and somewhat clunky, which I suspected was a result of the book being a translation of an original German text. Indeed translation complexities can be seen in those names that were different from those in the film. For instance, Fantastica rather than the film's Fantasia, or the creatures called Rockbiters being called Rockchewers in the book. Likewise I missed a little tension that existed in several scenes of the film, for example, when a distraught Atreyu screams at his beloved horse as he sinks into the swamps of sadness, rather than the slower and more dolorous conversation Atreyu has with the talking horse in the book.

This however was made up for by a great deal more mystery and wonder. We got several more fairy tale style descriptions of Fantastican lands and creatures, and a good few literary illusions, from Atreyu's people, a group of buffalo hunters similar to Native Americans being called "green skins" recalling the "red skins" of J. M. Barry's Peter Pan, or Chairon the centaur, a figure from mythology. I also loved the way that it was brought home to the reader just how never-ending the story was, by having any element of the story about to drop out of the narrative scope typified by the phrase "but that is another story and will be told another time".

I therefore began the second half of the book in high spirits, expecting to learn more about the Nothing, the Empress and the nature of Fantastica. What I got however was a radically different story. Rather than a quest to save a world from a rapidly approaching and very frightening danger, the book suddenly turned into a view of Bastian wandering around Fantastica with the power to create anything by his wishes, and to create more of Fantastica just by telling a story, all thanks to the power of Auryn. The lands created no longer appeared quite as wonderful and threatening since it was always emphasized just how unbelievably invincible Bastian was, and though it became clear as time went on that Bastian's wishes were affecting him negatively, making him lose parts of himself and becoming more and more petty, this process wasn't fast enough to stop the book from dragging extremely, exploring less than interesting side turnings into rather more familiar literary territory such as Bastian winning a contest of arms with a magic sword or magically creating happy endings for minor characters. In short this transformed Fantastica from the quite literally grim land of fairy tales it initially appeared, to a place rather like the Magic Far Away Tree of Enid Blyton, a jolly romp where the merry children meet strange creatures, but woe betide anything bad should actually happen to them.

It also became clear during this half of the book that Bastian is a very different character to the imaginative, but lonely child of the film. While the book initially begins with the book shop owner describing Bastian as weak and cowardly, this I put down to the grumpiness of the old man rather than any inherent flaws on Bastian's part. Likewise when the narrative described him as fat and pasty and bow legged I believed this translation error.

As Bastian gained power however he also became far less pleasant. Indeed his very first wish is to transform into a strong and handsome prince rather than his actual self. This made the friendship between Bastian and Atreyu (not to mention the several suggestions of a kinship between the two), rather harder to understand particularly because Ende doesn't show any actual evidence of it before it starts going progressively more wrong as Bastian loses his memories through ever more wishes, a process which eventually leads Bastian to become virtually the book's villain.

I will say Ende managed to reach a satisfying conclusion in the end, albeit by that point in the story I really didn't care whether Bastian returned to the human world or not since I'd long since really been bothered about him. Indeed Bastian's redemption is far quicker than his corruption, which is a shame since the redemption was beginning to be interesting and finally introduced back some element of danger since it was not certain that Bastian would actually make it back to the human world.

A major problem I find upon rereading the novel is the philosophical inconsistency between the first and second parts of the book.

In the first half we learn that Fantastica is the world of human fantasy, and must be continued by the creativity of humans in the form of giving new names to the Childlike Empress, and that this process is threatened by those who cheapen fantasies into lies and delusions.

In the second half however, we are told that Bastian must discover what he truly wishes for by carrying out many wishes and changing Fantastica in the process, but each wish destroys part of his memory and that if he loses all memory of the human world entirely he loses all purpose and indeed the ability to make more wishes.

The ethical position of a person needing to discover what they truly want is a quite reasonable one (I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on that very subject) and it is also reasonable to assume that a person who gets overcome by desires loses themselves and their purpose. I do not however see a correspondence between the sort of fantasy found in literature, and determining what a person truly desires in their life.

It might be that Michael Ende equated fantasy (as its worst critics do) with wish fulfilment, that some sad loser (usually male) in a humdrum or purposeless life reads fantasy literature in order to live vicariously through characters being a great hero or adventurer or having romantic encounters they can't get in the rest of life. This however seems directly incorrect, since manifestly any good fantasy novel will be far closer to reality and will say as much about ourselves as anything else. Indeed the best rated fantasies are usually rated so precisely because of their realistic grounding of character and consistency, likewise a desire isn't fulfilled through fantasy but through actually working to acquire it in reality, meaning that the gap in definition between desires, i.e., what a person wants in their life, and fantasy wishes, i.e., wishing to be a handsome prince or fight a monster is extremely large.

Of course it is entirely possible that both as a lover of fantastic literature, and as a philosophy graduate who has studied desire fulfilment I am reading far too much into this. Nevertheless it is this contradiction, as well as the writing style or digression of the book's second half that I found most disappointing, especially considering that what I wanted for the second half was more about the Nothing, the Childlike Empress and the nature of Fantastica.

It almost feels that Ende had two separate visions for novels, one about fantasy and one about wish fulfilment and purpose. The second of these could quite well have been set in our own world and didn't need Fantastica as a setting, and indeed seems to denigrate the entire concept of Fantastica because of it.

The Neverending Story is undoubtedly a classic in many ways - unique world and philosophy, and some extremely nice concepts. Nevertheless, it feels a distinctly flawed gem. Had the whole book been of the quality of the first half I would gladly rate the book much more highly despite possible translation errors. As it is, this is likely the one occasion when I would break my own rule and recommend people watch the film before reading the book, since the film preserves much of what is best, and avoids what I felt were the worst aspects of the book. And only if you really enjoy the film should you try Ende's original novel.

8/10 Undoubtedly a classic in many ways. Nevertheless, a distinctly flawed gem.

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Sandra from Germany

I am afraid, I must disagree. I never saw the movie (and after someone told me it covers only the first half of the book, I had no desire to) When I was around twelve, I got the book from by parents and I identified myself with Bastian a lot, a bullied child that would prefer to escape in a book. One sentence also resonated with me, where he said, that he does not like books depicting non fantasy elements, because the real world is already around him and in such books someone allways wants you to get a lesson into you. He was my type of hero and the second half was interesting, as it differs from the usual hero story as Bastian falls really deep, before he gets up again. I re-read the book, when I was 14 and 16 and 18 and 20. With every reading the book got better, but my focus shifted. The first half, the near parody of a heroical journey became not so important, a mere introduction, good to keep the children invested in the story like it worked for Bastian. I mean the fact that the story basicly admitts that Atrejus findings are unimportant, the empress knows it all already, really drive home the point of an affectionate parody of the typical kids hero storys! No, the second half is, what really gripps me still. What purpose serves the human imagination? Why do we write and enjoy stories? What is the right balance between inspration through phantastic tellings to improve and reflect on the world and when do we ourselve indulge in harmful escapism? It invites us to stop to ask, what we really want in life and why we want it. And of course this anwser changes, as we change and grow. Like the Never Ending Story changes with us, with every read - the hallmark of a truly good book. And later in life I saw, that Michael Ende also wants trough his book to get us to do something, but he does it not in a moralising way, but in a way that appreaciates fantastic writing and can reach a child prone to escapisim via its core tool to escape. A 12 year old does not really get the "do what you wish" part, but enjoys the adventure. The 16 year old gets it; but is still not really ready to try and anwser it, and the 20 year old and every age after that can always use a reminder, to re-answer this question. For me, the message of the first and the second half of the book are different from each other, but they do not contradict but supplement each other. Fantasy has value, but escapisim is dangerous - both can be true Ende fought against the brushing off of childrens books and I think he did succed in the rare feat of writing a book that grows with its audience and never leaves definitive answers.

Ash from United States

After many years I fulfilled my childhood dream and read this book as an adult. Couldn't get my hands on it as a child. I loved the first half of the book and was impressed with what they did with the first movie. I will always love the movie more. Funny thing is the second and third movies are not very good, and ironically the second half of the book is not very good either. There's a strange disconnect. I went online to see if others felt the same way. Everything about Fantasia in the first half of the book made me want more. In the second half when Bastion goes into the book the story becomes very drawn-out and seems to be almost written completely differently. There are contradictions and a lot of things don't make sense. I started the book out with high hopes and I couldn't put it down. Sadly after Bastian came to Fantasia it was a real struggle to finish, but I pressed on hoping the end would make it all worth it. To be honest this story has so much potential. After everything we strive toward the end and we get the "Water of Life" thrown at us in the last 3 chapters, I just feel like the author was pulling things out of nowhere and there's no real explanation. We get that it's the NeverEnding Story, but I still had a lot of questions about childlike empress and such. :(

8.3 /10 from 3 reviews

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Book Review: “The Neverending Story” by Michael Ende

The neverending story by michael ende translated by ralph manheim.

This 1979 German best-seller (original title  Die Unendliche Geschichte ) crossed the Atlantic when I was a child and became, among other things, the basis for two movies. I don’t remember the sequel very well, but I loooooved  the original movie  when I was a pale, flabby, cowardly boy of around 10 years old, just like the story’s hero: Bastian Balthazar Bux.

If you think that’s a cool name, there are more where it came from. This book is (well, partly) all about names. But it’s also about the way the magical world of make-believe — the world that exists in stories — depends on people in our world to keep it going. AND VICE VERSA. Which is a theme I’ve been harping on ever since I started writing for MuggleNet!

So maybe there’s a hint of “clap your hands if you believe in fairies” in it. You’ll have to take it up with the author (who died in 1995, by the way). There’s more to it than that. This is a mind-blowing children’s fantasy-adventure which we read, at first, through the eyes of a lonely little boy who has stolen the book from a used book dealer and gone into hiding in the attic of his school. But then, in one of the greatest fantasy twists ever, Bastian finds himself becoming a character in the story!

At first the story-within-a-story is exciting enough: the quest of a heroic 10-year-old “greenskin” named Atreyu to find a cure for the illness that threatens the life of the Childlike Empress. For as she weakens, the horrible Nothing takes over more and more of the magical land of Fantastica. And if she dies, all of Fantastica will cease to exist. Through many adventures, joined by a beautiful Luck Dragon named Falkor, Atreyu learns that the only way to cure the Childlike Empress is for someone from the real world —  our  world — to give her a name. And that someone happens to be Bastian Balthazar Bux.

Though it goes against everything he considers possible, though he is terrified and ashamed, Bastian enters the land of Fantastica, gives the Childlike Empress her new name, and becomes the savior of the world that is  The Neverending Story . So much for the first movie, but that’s only the first half of the book. And what it says, particularly at its climax, about the vital connection between fantasy and reality, is worth noting. For the world of stories isn’t merely an “escape” from reality. The health of one world depends on the health of the other. When people refuse to enjoy stories and imagination, they do not learn to be good people in reality, nor do they learn to distinguish truth from lies. Perhaps crime, tyranny, immorality, and every kind of human misery (the kinds inflicted by humans, at least) can be traced to a loss of acquaintance with the “unreal” world that teaches us to understand and live in the “real.”

The second half of the book begins after Bastian has entered Fantastica, and has been given a magical talisman with the power to make his wishes come true. Set at liberty to do what he pleases, he wanders that marvelous land and enriches it with his stories and names, which become reality. He accumulates friends and followers, and he reinvents himself as more of the kind of person he would like to be — handsome, brave, strong, etc. But with every wish he gets in the land of magic, he loses a piece of himself, a portion of his memory from the real world. And in time, he begins to lose control over the things he wishes for. This brings about one of the most heartbreaking disasters penned by mortal man, and the growing danger that Bastian will forget everything about himself before he can find his way home.

The story swarms with fabulous creatures, memorable characters, scenes and episodes and settings that explode off the page. At times the idea of falling into the story doesn’t seem so far-fetched! What more could you ask for? There is terror and suspense, tragedy and humor, friendship and loss, a grand tournament, and a bloody battle. You will meet a werewolf, an evil sorceress, a suicidal horse, a wise mule, a Many-Colored Death, a swamp of sadness, and a fountain of life. You will chew your nails over the disastrous progress of our hero, and probably shed tears by the end.

And perhaps, from this lesser-known second half of the book, you will learn another lesson about the world of stories: you can lose yourself there, and that is bad. But if you return to the real world, if you remember what is real, you can bring back gifts from the world of imagination that will make the real world a better place. In the moving words of Carl Conrad Coreander, near the end of the book: “If I’m not mistaken, you will show many others the way to Fantastica, and they will bring us the Water of Life.”

Of course  the movie  looks quite dated now. But the book is still beautiful, still moving, and still inviting youngsters to plunge into its amazing fantasy world. Buy it or borrow it (don’t steal it), and stay up all night reading it. It won’t let you down.

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The Neverending Story Book Review

As I finished the last page of Michael Ende’s book, The Neverending Story , it felt like I had come back from an amazing trip. This adventure wasn’t just about exploring the magical world of Fantastica. It was also about discovering the power of imagination and learning about what makes us human. The story took me to incredible places and introduced me to fantastic creatures, but more than that, it made me think deeply about dreams, hope, and courage. It was like going on an exciting journey inside my own mind and heart, learning about the magic that lives within all of us.

The Neverending Story is about a young boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux. Bastian finds a special book, and as he reads it, he becomes part of an amazing world called Fantastica. This world is in danger because of a strange and scary thing called The Nothing . As Bastian keeps reading, he starts to understand that what he thinks and believes can actually change what happens in the story.

The way this book creates its own world is incredible. Every character and place has so much detail and creativity, it’s like you’re there. There are many different spots in Fantastica, like the sad and gloomy Swamps of Sadness and the beautiful Ivory Tower. The author, Michael Ende, has made a world that feels new and exciting. It has some familiar fairy tale parts, but also lots of new and surprising ideas that make you think differently about fantasy stories.

What makes The Neverending Story stand out is its characters. They’re not just people in a make-believe world; they show us different parts of what it means to be human. Atreyu, the young fighter, is all about being brave and true to his friends. The Childlike Empress stands for wisdom that lasts forever and kindness. There are many other characters too, and each one has their own special traits and stories. This mix of characters makes the story even more interesting and full of life. Bastian, the main character, is quite complicated. His adventure is about more than just rescuing Fantastica. It’s also about him learning about himself and fixing his mistakes. We get to see him change from being a shy and unsure boy into someone who believes in himself. This change is written so well that it touches our hearts. It makes us think about how we all have the ability to change and grow.

The book talks about ideas that are just as important now as when he wrote it. One big idea is how imagination and creativity are getting lost in a world that cares more about practical things. The Nothing, which wipes out dreams and creative thoughts, is a strong symbol of not caring and losing hope. It shows how when people stop dreaming and being creative, a part of the world disappears. Also, the book tells us that our stories and dreams are connected and that we all can create our reality. The Neverending Story wants to remind everyone, young or old, to value their imagination. It shows us that our imagination is strong and can make a big difference.

Ende’s way of telling the story is special. He mixes Bastian’s real world and the fantasy world of Fantastica together really smoothly. The story moves back and forth between these two worlds in a way that feels natural. In the original version of the book, they used different colors of text to show the story inside the story, which was a clever idea. But what really makes the book stand out is how it makes you feel and think. This book isn’t just for kids; it’s like a deep, thoughtful lesson wrapped up in an exciting fantasy story. The writing is beautiful and easy to understand, with parts that stay in your mind even after you finish reading.

The Neverending Story is more than just a book; it’s a big adventure into the world of fantasy stories. Michael Ende created a place with no limits, just like our imagination. This story talks to both the kid and the deep thinker inside all of us. It reminds us of the magic in stories and ourselves. The Neverending Story shines like a light of hope in a world where it’s easy to forget how important dreams and stories are. It shows us that our imagination can take us anywhere. This book is extraordinary and deserves to be called timeless.

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First published as a juvenile, in German, four years ago: an inventive, meaningful, incident-packed fantasy featuring a boy...

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THE NEVERENDING STORY

by Michael Ende ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 14, 1983

First published as a juvenile, in German, four years ago: an inventive, meaningful, incident-packed fantasy featuring a boy who falls into a book-within-a-book. Fat, despised schoolboy Bastian Balthazar Bux steals this special book. And, afraid to return home, he hides in the school attic--reading about the magical land of Fantasiana, home to all manner of strange and intriguing creatures. Fantasiana, alas, is being eaten away by expanding blobs of Nothing; the childlike Empress, herself ill, gives her talisman, AURYN, to a young, purple-buffalo-hunting Greenskin, Atreyu; his quest is to find a cure for the Empress' and the land's afflictions. But, after various charming adventures, Atreyu learns that only a human from the real world can save Fantasiana--by giving the Empress a new name (something no Fantasianian is capable of). And, at this point, schoolboy Bastian realizes that it's him they're talking about! He even has a new name ready, but can't pluck up the courage to speak it aloud--until he realizes that the story so far will just endlessly repeat itself unless he does. Eventually, then, the Empress and Fantasiana are healed; Bastian finds himself in Fantasiana, in possession of AURYN, a talisman that grants his every wish; but every time a wish comes true, he loses some of his real-world memories. . . so he fails into folly and evil before undergoing a spiritual rebirth and finally returning home. An appealing, delicately wrought, engrossing adventure--for children of all ages.

Pub Date: Oct. 14, 1983

ISBN: 0140074317

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION

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03 May 2016

Book review: the neverending story by michael ende.

Impressions

Favorite quotes.

• “Only search and inquire, never judge.” — Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
• “The world is full of things you don’t see.” — Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
• “What you don’t wish for will always be beyond your reach.” — Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

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• Book Review: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

This epic work of the imagination has captured the hearts of millions of readers worldwide since it was first published more than a decade ago. Its special story within a story is an irresistible invitation for readers to become part of the book itself. And now this modern classic and bibliophile's dream is available in hardcover again. The story begins with a lonely boy named Bastian and the strange book that draws him into the beautiful but doomed world of Fantastica. Only a human can save this enchanted place - by giving its ruler, the Childlike Empress, a new name. But the journey to her tower leads through lands of dragons, giants, monsters, and magic - and once Bastian begins his quest, he may never return. As he is drawn deeper into Fantastica, he must find the mysteries of his own heart. Readers, too, can travel to the wonderous, unforgettable world of Fantastica if they will just turn the page...

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The Neverending Story Mass Market Paperback – Illustrated, January 1, 1993

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 448 pages
• Language English
• Grade level 5 - 6
• Lexile measure 930L
• Dimensions 7.14 x 4.4 x 1.02 inches
• Publisher Puffin Books
• Publication date January 1, 1993
• ISBN-10 0140386335
• ISBN-13 978-0140386332
• See all details

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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Puffin Books (January 1, 1993)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140386335
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140386332
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 7+ years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 930L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 5 - 6
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.14 x 4.4 x 1.02 inches
• #488 in Children's Classics
• #750 in Children's Fantasy & Magic Books
• #1,014 in Children's Action & Adventure Books (Books)

About the authors

Ralph manheim.

Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He likened translation to acting, the role being "to impersonate his author".

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Michael Ende

Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende (12 November 1929 – 28 August 1995) was a German writer of fantasy and children's fiction. He is best known for his epic fantasy The Neverending Story; other famous works include Momo and Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer (Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver). His works have been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 35 million copies,[1] and adapted as motion pictures, stage plays, operas and audio books. Ende is one of the most popular and famous German authors of the 20th century, mostly due to the enormous success of his children's fiction. He was not strictly a children's writer, however, as he wrote books for adults too. Ende's writing could be described as a surreal mixture of reality and fantasy.

Roswitha Quadflieg

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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By Michael Ende Translated by Ralph Manheim New York: Dutton Children�s Books, 1997 ISBN: 0-525-45758-5 (hc) 396 pages

�Every human who has been here has learned something that could be learned only here, and returned to his own world a changed person.�

�When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.�

I enjoyed this novel a great deal. While as fantastical as anything I�ve ever read, there were some powerful human truths in the relationship between memory and actual experience, and the process by which we humans recreate our lives in memory. I plan to read further works of author Michael Ende, he has definitely wetted my appetite for his writing.

Y oung A dult and K ids’ Books – book reviews for children

Book review, the neverending story by michael ende (1979).

H ave you ever held a storybook in your hand and spared a moment's thought for the characters waiting inside? As soon as you start to read a story the characters spring into life, fully formed, don't they? They live in their own world, with their own past, present and future.

But what happens if you don't bother to read the book? What happens if everyone gives up reading and talking about the stories? If everyone forgets about the stories, do the characters die? Do they just disappear into nothingness?

That is what this story is about. Our hero is Bastian Balthazar Bux. He is a rather timid, bookish, fat boy who is unhappy at school because he is always being teased. One rainy morning he takes refuge from his tormentors in a second hand bookshop, and there he first beholds a book which he feels he absolutely must have, to read:

He picked up the book and examined it from all sides. It was bound in copper-colored silk that shimmered when he moved it about. Leafing through the pages, he saw the book was printed in two colors. There seemed to be no pictures, but there were large, beautiful capital letters at the beginning of the chapters. Examining the binding more closely, he discovered two snakes on it, one light and one dark. They were biting each other's tail, so forming an oval. And inside the oval, in strangely intricate letters, he saw the title:

The Neverending Story

He can't buy it, and so he steals the book, hides himself away in the attic of his own school, and settles down to read the same story that we are reading: The Neverending Story.

We enter the realm of Fantastica, where things are going badly wrong. The realm is being swallowed up, slowly but surely, by advancing puddles of nothingness. The diverse inhabitants of Fantastica send out messengers to their Childlike Empress who lives in the Ivory Tower to see if she can help or advise. Alas, she cannot, it seems, because she is also dying from a mysterious illness. She can only be cured if a human will visit Fantastica and endow her with a new name.

The stage is set. The Childlike Empress sends her hero, a boy named Atreyu, out on a mission to search for just such a human. Atreyu's task is a difficult one. In fact, he must launch himself off on such a wild and demanding and absorbing adventure that he succeeds in drawing the reader, Bastian Balthazar Bux, back into the realm of Fantastica! But Atreyu does succeed, and Bastian is delighted to find himself suddenly transported into Fantastica.

You might think that that is the end of the story, but in fact it is just the beginning. Because, once there, Bastian Balthazar Bux has such a marvellous time that he does not want to leave. And in the end, he finds that he very nearly can't leave. He needs all the help he can get from his friends in Fantastica.

If you enjoy fantasy and roaming round totally new worlds populated by the outlandish and bizarre, then I'm sure you will enjoy this book!

What can I read next?

If you enjoy The Neverending Story you will probably also enjoy this one by Michael Ende:

You might also like to have a look at The Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson:

• The Wind Singer
• Slaves of the Mastery

I think you might enjoy Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy:

• Northern Lights
• The Subtle Knife
• The Amber Spyglass

You could look at these books by John Masefield:

• The Midnight Folk
• The Box of Delights

And I'm sure you would love the world created by J R R Tolkien:

By the way, just thinking about creations of the imagination, when Bastian Balthazar Bux is in Fantastica he has the problem of wondering whether the creatures that he meets in Fantastica only exist because of him and his imagination, or whether they have always been there. It reminded me of one of the characters in The Kin by Peter Dickinson, who wonders whether the gods have always occupied a particular holy place, or whether they only came to the holy place with their people when the people arrived there. It is a superb book, take a look at it:

Also, the Bookchooser has found these books with a similar profile:

• The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea (Score: 100%)
• Sebastian Darke, Prince of Fools by Philip Caveney (Score: 93%)
• The New Policeman by Kate Thompson (Score: 93%)
• Mister Monday by Garth Nix (Score: 93%)
• The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud (Score: 93%)

The Neverending Story features in these lists:

• Books with a touch of magic
• Adventure books

Ways The NeverEnding Story Is Different From The Book

This content was paid for by Netflix and created by Looper.

The 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story is a beloved modern classic that's still used as a pop-culture touchstone to this day. Take, for example, the season 3 finale of  Stranger Things , which ended with Dustin and his girlfriend sweetly singing the movie's theme song, or how a flying luck dragon similar to the story's famed Falkor has made an appearance not once but twice on Fox's Family Guy . Indeed, it has proven to be an enduring adventure that continues to spark the imaginations of millions.

Based on the best-selling, critically-acclaimed 1979 novel of the same name by German author Michael Ende and translated into English by Ralph Manheim, The NeverEnding Story tells the tale of a shy, outcast boy named Bastian (Barret Oliver) who finds himself immersed in a magical book about a fantasy land that's on the brink of destruction. The movie was co-written and directed by Wolfgang Peterson, who was best known at the time for the war film Das Boot and went on to helm such blockbusters as Troy , The Perfect Storm , and Air Force One .

At the time of its release, The NeverEnding Story was the most expensive film ever produced in Germany. It went on to make a purported $100 million worldwide and spawned two sequels and an animated TV series, solidifying itself as a sentimental anchor in the hearts and minds of a generation.

While the movie uniquely captures the essence of the book, there are some subtle — and not so subtle — differences, starting with the fact that in the movie the mythical land Bastian becomes engrossed in is called Fantasia, while in the book it's Fantastica. But that's not the only variation. Here are a few more ways the NeverEnding Story  differs from the book.

The NeverEnding Story only covers the first half of the book

The NeverEnding Story immortalized onscreen in the original film only tells half of the story in the book.

When we first meet Bastian, both in the movie and the book, he has taken refuge in a vintage bookstore after running away from some school bullies. There, he stumbles upon an unusual book titled The NeverEnding Story that he's instantly drawn to. After running off with it without paying, Bastian holes himself up in his school's attic to read the tale that follows a young warrior named Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) as he sets out on a treacherous journey to find a cure for the ill Childlike Empress (Tami Stronach) who rules over a fantastical land that's being destroyed by a malicious force called The Nothing.

In both the movie and the book, Bastian fervently follows Atreyu's obstacle-filled odyssey until it becomes apparent that Bastian has also become part of the narrative. He must accept that he now plays a role in The NeverEnding Story — he is the one who can save the empress. All he has to do is actively join the adventure and give her a new name, which he does. Here's where the movie ends.

But the book continues on, with Bastian getting sucked into the pages and using his imagination to shape the world around him. But every time he makes a wish, he loses an earthly memory. This leads to him down a dark path as he slowly forgets who he is and where he came from.

Enter the 1990 film The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter , which tackles the second half of the book. While none of the original NeverEnding Story movie cast returns, many of the same characters are featured — including Bastian, Atreyu, the Childlike Empress, and, of course, Falkor. Meanwhile, a third film, The NeverEnding Story III: Escape From Fantasia, was released in 1994, but it follows a new story line that has nothing to do with the book.

Some of the NeverEnding Story characters look and act different in the movie

The NeverEnding Story features some of the most memorable movie characters to come out of the 1980s — what kid didn't want to take a magical ride on Falkor? But not all the characters from the film look or act exactly as they're described in the book. While these changes may seem slight, they surely affected how the film resonated with fans.

Take Falkor, for instance. In the film, the flying luck dragon resembles a charming white dog with floppy ears. In the book, Falkor looks more like a lion with large fangs, a luxuriant mane, and pointy ears. Would Falkor be as cherished if he wasn't a happy-go-lucky dog with his tongue flopping out of his mouth? It's certainly up for debate.

Other examples include the appearances of Bastian and Atreyu. In the book Bastian is a pale, pudgy kid with glasses who's embarrassed by his looks. But in the movie, he's slim, cute, and glasses-free. Another slight change was that Atreyu had green skin in the book — not a big deal, right? But making him look more human in the film made him a little more accessible to viewers. 

But bodily characteristics aren't the only area where change is obvious. One example of a significant character shift is with Artax, Atreyu's trusty horse, who talks in the book but doesn't onscreen. Still, the death of Artax in the Swamps of Sadness is certainly one of the more distressing moments in the film. In fact, somehow the situation is even more dire considering the white steed can't express himself as he sinks slowly into the mud and eventually disappears.

While the nuances of Artax's death differ — in the book, instead of silently sinking into the swamp, Artax tells Atreyu to leave him behind rather than watch him die — the end result is the same. Before this incident, the idea that the magical land is being sucked into The Nothing is fairly abstract. But once Atreyu experiences a personal loss, he finds a new motivation — and so does the observer.

The Nothing that overtakes The NeverEnding Story is much more complex in the book

In the movie The NeverEnding Story , The Nothing that's swallowing up Fantasia is depicted as a storm, with dark clouds swirling in the sky sweeping up everything in its path. No more forests, no more creatures, not even a dried-up lake...just nothing is left behind. According to the sinister wolf-like creature Gmork, who has been tasked with tracking down and killing Atreyu, The Nothing was created from people in the human world who have no hopes or dreams, no imagination, and that emptiness and despair is what's destroying Fantasia, since the magical land was initially created from human fantasy.

But in the book, Gmork knows this because he is a servant of the power behind the Nothing: a group of antagonists called The Manipulators who are unique to the book. And if Gmork succeeds in killing Atreyu, people will have no hope, and people with no hope are easy to control — and The Manipulators are looking to control the human race. The Nothing not only destroys Fantastica but when it surrounds people who have lost faith and given up hope, they surrender themselves into oblivion by jumping right into it. Once they are swallowed up, they are reborn in the human world as lies, which creates despair and gives The Manipulators more power.

While The Nothing succeeds in destroying the land and all it encompasses, Bastian creates a new version of the world by using his imagination.

The ending of The NeverEnding Story deviates from the book

Obviously, the main difference when it comes to the ending of the NeverEnding Story movie versus the book is that the film effectively lops off half the story. But within that truncated ending, there is still a slight difference as to how we get to the film's conclusion. Where the book is able to introduce a multitude of characters and meander through several layers of storytelling, the film is much more streamlined.

The climax comes when Bastion realizes he is part of the story that he's reading — the characters are actually speaking directly to him through the pages — and Atreyu's whole journey was a way to suck him into the book and fuel his imagination. He soon finds out that he is the key to saving Fantasia, and all he has to do is give the Childlike Empress a new name. Until he does that, the all-consuming Nothing will swallow up the fanciful land that Bastian has come to love until everything's gone.

In the film, Bastion realizes his purpose through a little coaxing from the empress, who makes it clear that the boy reading the book is her savior. In the book, it's a much more roundabout journey for Bastion and the empress. She must go on her own expedition to find the Old Man of Wandering Mountain, who tells her the story Bastian just read — and is now part of — will endlessly repeat until Bastian understands his role. Therefore, Bastian reads the same story over and over until he finally understands the part he plays. Both scenarios end with him saving the land by calling out a new name for the empress: Moon Child.

The last scenes of the film are of Bastian using his imagination to rebuild Fantasia — the land is lush again, Atreyu and Artax are reunited, and, most importantly, Bastian gets to take a triumphant ride on Falkor. If you want to know what happens beyond this, you'll just have to watch The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter .

Review: The Neverending Story

Gareth B. Matthews

Review of The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Doubleday, 1983).  Originally published in Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 5 (3): 1.

A fat little boy about ten or twelve years old named “Bastian” enters a book shop, falls in love with a strange volume bound in copper-colored silk and decorated with two snakes biting each other’s tail. Bastian steal the book, plays hooky from school, and holes himself up in the school attic to read the book.

The story Bastian reads is a story within a story. Indeed, since the book Bastian steals is also called “The Never­ ending Story,” it is the Neverending Story within the Neverending Story. In the “outer” story (printed for us in red), Bastian is soon moved to enter the story he is reading (printed for us in green) so that, like the snake emblem, one tale begins to swallow the other. Finally, after many episodes of high adventure, Bastian falls out of the world of fantasy and back into the world of ordinary fiction where we first encountered him.

The Neverending Story is certainly as much for adults as it is for kids, but not, I think, more. It has been a bestseller in Germany, it has been translated into 27 languages and, as one might have predicted, it will be made into a movie, to be distributed by Warner Brothers.

Being a story of 396 pages, it is an epic fantasy, as well as a fantasy epic. The fun for the reader is partly in the grand sweep of archetypal adventure, but partly also in the fine details and suggestive asides. Those details include fascinating descriptions of mythical creatures and fantastic places, but they also include intriguing philosophical motifs and psychological ruminations.

The land of fantasy Bastian reads about is Fantastica. Like the world Alice visits through the looking-glass, Fantastica depends for its existence on the “real” world. But then the “real” world, we are told, depends for its health on the well-being of Fantastica. The threat to Fantastica is presented as the encroachment of “the Nothing.” In the style of Heideggerian philosophy, the Nothing in The Neverending Story really nothings.

Fantastica, we learn, will slip into malaise and eventual nothingness unless a human being gives its superheroine, the Childlike Empress, a new name. When we realize that the events of Fantastica rest on forgotten and unprocessed human dreams, we are able to appreciate that our very mental health may require us to reclaim archetypal stories by giving their superheroes and super­ heroines new names. So far the message is psychological. But The Neverending Story has philosophical morals, as well as psychological ones.

About a third of the way through the book, the story in green print begins to recycle the story in red print. This, then, is a story about stories. It prods us to raise many of the most intriguing questions we can ask about stories.

What is a story? Must there be some truth in any good story? Must there be some falsification in any good story? Is there such a thing as what really happens, against which the accuracy of a given historical account can be judged? Or is “what really happened” itself a fiction to designate raw material for stories?

Is any good story about fictional characters also, in some way, about real people? Can we understand real people without trying to learn ”the story of their lives”? Can they understand them­selves without being able to tell the story of their own lives?

The Neverending Story is a good story to read and think about. It’s a good story in which to think about stories, what they are, and why we tell them.

It's Better Out Here

Book Review: The Neverending Story

Most people have heard of the 80s movie The Neverending Story . Plus, if you’ve seen Stranger Things , you’ve heard the song. But did you know that there was a book? 

This timeless fantasy was originally written in 1979 by German novelist Michael Ende. Later, in 1983, Ralph Manheim translated The Neverending Story into English just in time for the movie to come out the next year. The movie tends to be more popular among English speakers, but you can probably guess what I’m going to say next…

The book is better.

The Neverending Story tells a story within a story in a very self-referential way. It begins with a young reader, Bastian Balthazar Bux (say that three times fast), reading the story of Atreyu, the hero working to save Fantastica from the Nothing. The first half of the book follows Atreyu’s adventures faithfully. But there’s a twist.

Half way through, the book does an unconventional protagonist switch-out, leaving Atreyu backstage and completely turning over the limelight to Bastian — something that definitely doesn’t happen in the movie. Because of this story-within-the-story concept, the book heavily involves the reader all the way through. The protagonist switch isn’t the only twist either, but you’ll have to read to find out more!

I give this book a five star rating — Michael Ende truly is a wonderful storyteller. 

This book is very literary and some parts are a bit dark for younger children; thus, I would not recommend it for anyone under the age of 10. But it is a great book to make your 11- and 12-year-olds think.

More Books Like This

If you like the literary storytelling in The Neverending Story , you may also like The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952) or The Silver Chair (1953) from C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia .

– by Abbie Call

Read Next: A Wrinkle in Time Book Review .

Abbie Call –  Cannonville/Kirksville, Missouri

Abbie Call is a journalist and editor at The Byway . She graduated in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in editing and publishing from Brigham Young University. Her favorite topics to write about include anything local, Utah’s megadrought, and mental health and meaning in life. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hanging out with family, quilting and hiking with the dog she’s getting soon — fingers crossed.

Find Abbie on Threads @abbieb.call .

Michael Ende

11/12/1929 – 08/28/1995

The Neverending Story

A mysterious book fascinates young Bastian: The Neverending Story. Full of enthusiasm, he takes part in the adventures of its hero Atreyu and in his dangerous mission: He is supposed to save the dreamland Fantastica and its sovereign the Childlike Empress. Soon, however, Bastian must realise that he is more than an uninvolved spectator. And then he finds himself suddenly in Fantastica … The adventure of his life starts: “Do what you want” is written on the medallion that symbolises limitless power in Fantastica. But what the sentence means Bastian will learn only when it is almost too late. Because his real mission is not to rule Fantastica but to find his way out of it. But how do you leave a realm that has no borders? With his immortal masterpiece Michael Ende has conquered the hearts of young readers – and those young at heart – all over the world. A fairytale novel for children and adults which up to this day has lost none of its fascination or unrivalled success.

Original Edition

• Original Title: Die unendliche Geschichte
• Format: Cloth bound hardcover
• Illustrations: Roswitha Quadflieg
• First publication: 1979
• Publisher: Thienemann
• Translations:
• Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (GB & USA), Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovanian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese

In English:

• The Neverending Story Hardcover, 396 pages, Doubleday 1983.

Press Reviews

"An instantaneous leap into the magical … Energetic, innovative, and perceptive"

– The Washington Post

"A rich, enjoyable read … drawing in the most potent elements of fairytale, myth, and invented fantasy."

– The Observer

"You might just get in touch with the child in you who clapped her hands for Tinker Bell."

"A trumpet blast for the imagination."

– Sunday Times

"An appealing, delicately wrought, engrossing adventure."

– Kirkus Reviews

Current Editions

• The Neverending Story Hardcover, 400 pages, Dutton Books for Young Readers 1997.
• The Neverending Story Paperback, 384 pages, Penguin 1984.
• The Neverending Story Mass market paperback, 448 pages, Penguin 1993.
• The Neverending Story Paperback, 528 pages, Puffin 2014.
• The Neverending Story E-Book, Puffin.
• Die unendliche Geschichte Cloth bound hardcover, 475 pages, Thienemann Verlag 2019
• Die unendliche Geschichte E-book, Thienemann 2017.
• Die unendliche Geschichte (luxury edition) Cloth bound hardcover, 416 pages, illustrated by Sebastian Meschenmoser, Thienemann 2019.

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The Neverending Story

Where to watch.

Rent The Neverending Story on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

A magical journey about the power of a young boy's imagination to save a dying fantasy land, The NeverEnding Story remains a much-loved kids adventure.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Wolfgang Petersen

Barret Oliver

Noah Hathaway

Tami Stronach

The Childlike Empress

Patricia Hayes

Movies in Theaters

Movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

'The NeverEnding Story' Review: Wolfgang Petersen's Flawed Adaptation Still Shines

Almost four decades later, there is still something to appreciate in the more subtle and sublime moments of this fantasy adaptation.

An adaptation of the epic children’s fantasy novel of the same name, 1984’s The NeverEnding Story remains one of those films that is etched in the minds of all who saw it in their younger years . As such, it is an artifact of nostalgia that doesn’t quite hold up as well as one would hope it did. However, it still remains a charming yet haunting encapsulation of a particular era of filmmaking that saw the fraught first adaptation of the beloved novel of the same name.

Co-written and directed by the recently departed filmmaker, Wolfgang Petersen , it begins with ten-year-old Bastian Bux ( Barret Oliver ), who has recently lost his mother but discovers a magnificent literary world that allows him to escape from math tests and bullying. He "borrows" the book from a bookstore despite being warned by the bookseller that it is not one that is "safe" to read. Of course, being a kid, this makes Bastian want to read it more, so, he starts reading it in the isolation of the school's attic. He then gets thrust into the world of Fantasia and the quest of the young warrior Atreyu ( Noah Hathaway ) to track down a cure to heal the Empress of the realm of her illness. The road to finding it is a grim one as, in addition to being hunted down by a wolf-like creature known as Gmork, there is also an opening scene where Atreyu's horse, Artax, is swallowed up by the Swamp of Sadness. Despite his desperate pleas and attempt to save him, we begin with this shattering death that sets the tone for the rest of the journey that will also soon draw in the unsuspecting Bastian as well.

The film is one whose production is just as interesting, if not more so, than the actual adaptation itself. While the author of the best-selling novel, the late Michael Ende , had originally been on board with the movie, he quickly soured on the adaptation that he called “revolting” and a demonstration that “the makers of the film simply did not understand the book at all.” He even unsuccessfully sued to stop the film from being released, alleging “breach of contract” saying that his “moral and artistic existence is at stake in this film.” While there are many adaptations of novels that aren’t exactly beloved by the readers who first came to the story through the source material, there aren’t that many that were dismissed so comprehensively by the authors themselves. While an adaptation can and should make changes for the medium it is taking the story into, the criticisms Ende offered are well-taken. In addition to only covering the first half of the book, there are some other significant alterations. From how Falcor, the iconic flying beast who saves Atreyu, is much different in his depiction as compared to how he is described in the book to the way the dark force of The Nothing is more shallow, there is much that gets sanded down from the source material.

This is unfortunate as, for a film about the power of imagination, there is much that ends up feeling a bit unimaginative. While it would be rather difficult to ever fully capture what the book managed to create, many of the decisions made in the film end up paling in comparison. Some of this comes down to streamlining for a feature as opposed to a full novel, but the way it comes across makes for a much more simplistic experience. Simplistic isn’t always bad and there is a clear passion in the way everything is constructed. However, it still falls short of its full potential in key moments. To say this was done to make it more accessible for a younger audience would be to underestimate the way children are capable of opening their minds to more expansive material. With all that being said, there is something to what the film does manage to pull off. Even though it isn’t perfect, many of the more haunting heights strike a chord.

RELATED: From 'Shang-Chi' to 'Reign of Fire': Best Movies About Dragons

While most will likely remember the moments where Atreyu flies atop Falcor with the memorable score playing underneath, there are also some more sublime and subtle moments that stand out. From the way the vast nothingness expands out before you or how lightning shatters across the sky, it is hard not to feel awe at the craft on display. While some of the effects are more than a little rough and were criticized as such at the time; when you get swept up in the story that all melts away. In particular, the scene where the world begins to get destroyed around Atreyu feels like a nightmare that cuts deep. It quite literally obliterates everything and leaves the characters pondering the destruction of their world as they float through space. Though it doesn’t dwell on this darkness for too long, moments like these leave an impact and make it one that finds something fascinating in this fantasy world.

As we then get to the ending, the stories collapse in on themselves. With Bastian apparently having just totally skipped the entire day of school to read, the young boy seems skeptical of what is happening. It is a sweet yet sentimental finale as he then embraces his own role in the story, moving from merely being a bystander into a hero in his own right. This leaves everything on a high note as we see Bastian finally get to embrace his own imagination and break free from all the burdens of reality that have kept him tied down. It is vastly different from the book, cutting out quite a lot of what happens with the Empress in helping him realize his power as the film was structurally constrained to reach its ending. There is a world where the subsequent sequels could have carried on in more engaging ways, though there is much less to defend once it continues on past this first one. Most interestingly, there is apparently a bidding war for the rights to revisit the story and start fresh. Whether that will happen remains anyone’s guess though, whatever happens, this original adaptation still remains one worth revisiting and appreciating even when it didn’t fully capture the novel.

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Minnesota and other Democratic-led states lead pushback on censorship. They’re banning the book ban

Last fall, Shae Ross and fellow students in Bloomington, Minnesota successfully persuaded their district not to ban certain books dealing with sexuality, gender and race. Now, legislators are pursuing a prohibition on similar bans in schools across the state. (AP video: Mark Vancleave)

Bloomington Jefferson senior Shae Ross, center, joined Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, left, at an event promoting proposed legislation to prevent books bans based on ideology at Como Park High School in St. Paul, Minn., on March 21, 2024. (Chris Williams/Education Minnesota via AP)

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Bloomington Jefferson senior Shae Ross, fourth from left, joins Governor Tim Walz, right, and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, second from left, at an event promoting proposed legislation to prevent books bans based on ideology at Como Park High School in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 21, 2024. (Chris Williams/Education Minnesota via AP)

Shae Ross, a senior at Jefferson High School, pose for a photo April, 19, 2024, in Bloomington, Minn. Ross and other students successfully campaigned their district not to ban certain books dealing with sexuality, gender and race after some parents objected to their presence in classrooms and libraries. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A movement to ban book bans is gaining steam in Minnesota and several other states, in contrast to the trend playing out in more conservative states where book challenges have soared to their highest levels in decades.

The move to quash book bans is welcome to people like Shae Ross, a queer and out Minnesota high school senior who has fought on the local level against bans on books dealing with sexuality, gender and race. Ross, 18, said she is encouraged to see her governor and leaders of other states are taking the fight statewide.

“For a lot of teenagers, LGBT teenagers and teenagers who maybe just don’t feel like they have a ton of friends, or a ton of popularity in middle or high school ... literature becomes sort of an escape.” Ross said. “Especially when I was like sixth, seventh grade, I’d say reading books, especially books with gay characters ... was a way that I could feel seen and represented.”

Minnesota is one of several Democratic-leaning states where lawmakers are now pursuing bans on book bans. The Washington and Maryland legislatures have already passed them this year, while Illinois did so last year. It was a major flashpoint of Oregon’s short session, where legislation passed the Senate but died without a House vote.

According to the American Library Association, over 4,200 works in school and public libraries were targeted in 2023, a jump from the old record of nearly 2,600 books in 2022. Many challenged books — 47% in 2023 — had LGBTQ+ and racial themes.

Restrictions in some states have increased so much that librarians and administrators fear crippling lawsuits, hefty fines and even imprisonment if they provide books that others regard as inappropriate. Already this year, lawmakers in more than 15 states have introduced bills to impose harsh penalties on libraries or librarians.

Conservative parents and activists argue that the books are too sexually explicit or otherwise controversial, and are inappropriate, especially for younger readers. National groups such as Moms for Liberty say parents are entitled to more control over books available to their children.

But pushback is emerging. According to EveryLibrary, a political action committee for libraries, several states are considering varying degrees of prohibitions on book bans. A sampling includes California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, though some in conservative states appear unlikely to pass. One has also died in New Mexico this year.

One such bill is awaiting Democratic Gov. Wes Moore’s signature in Maryland. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill last month that sets a high bar for removing challenged materials, especially those dealing with race, sexual orientation and gender identity. A version pending in New Jersey would protect librarians from civil or criminal liability.

Some proposals are labeled “Freedom to Read” acts.

“That’s what’s so critical here. The voluntary nature of reading,” said Martha Hickson, a librarian at North Hunterdon High School in New Jersey. “Students can choose to read, not read, or totally ignore everything in this library. No one is asking them to read a damn thing.”

Hickson recalled how parents first suggested her book collections contained pedophilia and pornography during a school board meeting in 2021. She watched the livestream in horror as they objected that the novel “Lawn Boy” and illustrated memoir “Gender Queer” were available to students and suggested she could be criminally liable.

“Tears welled up, shaking” Hickson said. ”But once my body got done with that, my normal attitude, the fight side kicked in, and I picked up my cellphone while the meeting was still going on and started reaching out.”

Book bans have been a sore point for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher. The Minnesota Senate passed his proposal this month. It would prohibit book bans in public and school libraries based on content or ideological objections and require that the key decisions about what books will or won’t be offered be made by library professionals.

The state House is considering an approach with more teeth, including penalties and allowing private citizens to sue to enforce it.

“I’m working with stakeholders, with the Department of Education, librarians, school districts and their representatives,” said Democratic Rep. Cedrick Frazier, of New Hope. “We’re working to tighten up the language, to make sure we can come to a consensus, and just kind of make sure that everybody’s on the same page.”

Ross, a student at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, was alarmed when she heard last year that conservative groups were organizing in her community to ban books based on their content. So she and her friends got organized themselves, and they helped persuade their school board to make it much harder to remove books and other materials from their libraries and classrooms.

Because of her activism, Ross was invited when Walz went to Como Park Senior High School in St. Paul last month to view a display of books banned elsewhere. The governor called book bans “the antithesis of everything we believe” and denounced what he depicted as a growing effort to bully school boards.

At a House hearing last month, speakers said books by LGBTQ+ and authors of color are among those most frequently banned. Karlton Laster, director of policy and organizing for OutFront Minnesota, who identifies as Black and queer, said reading their works helped him “communicate my hard feelings and truths to my family and friends,” and helped him come out to his family.

Kendra Redmond, a Bloomington mother with three children in public schools, testified about efforts to push back against a petition drive by conservatives to pull about 28 titles from the city’s school libraries.

Pushback from Ross, Redmond and others succeeded. The Bloomington School Board last month made it much harder to seek removals. Parents can still restrict access by their own children to material they deem objectionable.

Many challenges in the district came from the Bloomington Parents Alliance. One of its leaders, Alan Redding, recalled how his son’s 9th grade class was discussing a book a few years ago when graphic passages about date rape were read aloud in class. He said his son and other kids were unprepared for something so explicit.

“They were clearly bothered by this and disgusted,” Redding said. ”My son absolutely shut down for the semester.”

Minnesota Republican lawmakers have argued that instead of worrying about book bans, they should be focusing instead on performance in a state where just under half of public school students can read at grade level.

“Every book is banned for a child that doesn’t know how to read,” said GOP Rep. Patricia Mueller, a teacher from Austin.

Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey. Associated Press reporters Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed to this story.

Emily Henry does it again. Romantic 'Funny Story' satisfies without tripping over tropes

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The weather is getting warmer, so obviously it's time for another banger read from Emily Henry.

For a subset of millennial women, the author has become a summer staple . Freewheeling romances that defy the stereotypes of "beach reads" (starting with her 2020 debut cheekily titled, "Beach Read"), Henry has become a reliable source of yearly can't-put-them-down stories about love, friendships and getting older.

Her latest, " Funny Story " (available now from Berkley Hardcover, pp. 410) takes the traditional "opposites attract" narrative and gives a realistic, if somewhat tragic twist. Children’s librarian Daphne Vincent (Henry’s characters always love to read) has moved to a idyllic Lake Michigan beach town with her fiancé Peter, slotting herself into his preferred life and the house he bought.

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Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

But when Peter leaves her for his childhood best friend just weeks before their wedding, Daphne doesn’t have a place to live. She winds up bunking with Miles, the ex-boyfriend of Peter’s new love. He's a punky, fun-loving charmer who everybody loves, and she's bookish and reserved. They don’t have anything in common except their shared heartbreak, but isn’t that just the perfect setting for new romance? 

It certainly checks a lot of rom-com set up boxes, but Henry wisely keeps Daphne’s journey far from perfect. There is real grief and trauma here, plus a loss of self and identity. Before Daphne can even think about falling in love with Miles, she has to start loving and knowing herself again. Maybe that’s not the stuff of traditional beach fluff, but for so many women who have been lost in romance in an unhealthy way, it’s deeply cathartic. And once the time for romance is right, Henry doesn't disappoint. It's sweet, passionate, and just hot enough to steam up the book, if not set it on fire.

Just like in her other novels, the author's characters are deep, realistic and relatable. Daphne is quiet and guarded, having grown up with an absentee father she has no faith in anyone to live up to her expectations. Gregarious Miles has more issues than meet the eye, and unfolding his inner life takes the reader on an unexpected journey as he and Daphne become friends, and something more.

Henry is so particularly talented at creating romance that eschews tropes and clichés but still satisfies our innate desire for predictability and happy endings in this genre. It's certainly not easy to balance the comfortingly formulaic with the tantalizingly unique. " Story " might hit the mark best of all of Henry's books so far.

It's a funny story, how she does it, actually. You should take a read.

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Picture This

George takei 'lost freedom' some 80 years ago – now he's written that story for kids.

Samantha Balaban

George Takei was just 4 years old when when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066:

"I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders... to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded..."

It was Feb. 19, 1942. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor two months earlier; For looking like the enemy, Japanese and Japanese American people in the U.S. were now considered "enemy combatants" and the executive order authorized the government to forcibly remove approximately 125,000 people from their homes and relocate them to prison camps around the country.

Book Reviews

George takei recalls time in an american internment camp in 'they called us enemy'.

Star Trek actor George Takei has written about this time in his life before — once in an autobiography, then in a graphic memoir, and now in his new children's book, My Lost Freedom.

It's about the years he and his mom, dad, brother and baby sister spent in a string of prison camps: swampy Camp Rohwer in Arkansas, desolate Tule Lake in northern California. But first, they were taken from their home, driven to the Santa Anita racetrack and forced to live in horse stalls while the camps were being built.

"The horse stalls were pungent," Takei remembers, "overwhelming with the stench of horse manure. The air was full of flies, buzzing. My mother, I remember, kept mumbling 'So humiliating. So humiliating.'"

He says, "Michelle's drawing really captured the degradation our family was reduced to."

Michelle is Michelle Lee, the illustrator — and researcher — for the book. Lee relied heavily on Takei's text and his excellent memory, but it was the research that both agree really brought the art to life.

"I'm telling it from the perspective of a senior citizen," Takei, 87, laughs. "I really had to wring my brains to try to remember some of the details."

So Takei took Lee to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the board. They had lunch in Little Tokyo, got to know each other, met with the educational director, and looked at the exhibits. Then Lee started digging into the archives.

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From 'star trek' to lgbt spokesman, what it takes 'to be takei'.

"I looked for primary sources that showed what life was like because I feel like that humanizes it a lot more," Lee explains. She found some color photographs taken by Bill Manbo, who had smuggled his camera into the internment camp at Heart Mountain in Wyoming. "While I was painting the book, I tried as much to depict George and his family just going about their lives under these really difficult circumstances."

Takei says he was impressed with how Lee managed to capture his parents: his father, the reluctant leader and his mother, a fashion icon in her hats and furs. "This has been the first time that I've had to depict real people," Lee adds.

To get a feel for 1940s fashion, Lee says she looked at old Sears catalogues. "What are people wearing? All the men are wearing suits. What kind of colors were clothes back then."

But a lot of information has also been lost — Lee wasn't able to see, for example, where Takei and his family lived in Arkansas because the barracks at Camp Rohwer have been torn down — there's a museum there now. "I didn't actually come across too many photos of the interior of the barracks," says Lee. "The ones I did come across were very staged."

She did, however, find the original floor plans for the barracks at Jerome Camp, also in Arkansas. "I actually printed the floorplan out and then built up a little model just to see what the space was actually like," Lee says. "I think it just emphasized how small of a space this is that whole families were crammed into."

One illustration in the book shows the work that Takei's mother put in to make that barrack — no more than tar paper and boards stuck together — a home.

"She gathered rags and tore them up into strips and braided them into rugs so that we would be stepping on something warm," Takei remembers. She found army surplus fabrics and sewed curtains for the windows. She took plant branches that had fallen off the nearby trees and made decorative sculptures. She asked a friendly neighbor to build a table and chairs.

"You drew the home that my mother made out of that raw space, Takei tells Lee. "That was wonderful."

Michelle Lee painted the art for My Lost Freedom using watercolor, gouache and colored pencils. Most of the illustrations have a very warm palette, but ever-present are the barbed wire fences and the guard towers. "There's a lot of fencing and bars," Lee explains. "That was kind of the motif that I was using throughout the book... A lot of vertical and horizontal patterns to kind of emphasize just how overbearing it was."

Takei says one of his favorite drawings in the book is a scene of him and his brother, Henry, playing by a culvert.

Asian American And Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2022

George takei got reparations. he says they 'strengthen the integrity of america'.

"Camp Rohwer was a strange and magical place," Takei writes. "We'd never seen trees rising out of murky waters or such colorful butterflies. Our block was surrounded by a drainage ditch, home to tiny, wiggly black fishies. I scooped them up into a jar.

One morning they had funny bumps. Then they lost their tails and their legs popped out. They turned into frogs!"

"They're just two children among many children who were imprisoned at these camps," says Lee, "and to them, perhaps, aspects of being there were just fun." The illustration depicts both childlike wonder and — still, always — a sense of foreboding. Butterflies fly around a barbed wire fence. A bright sun shines on large, dark swamp trees. Kids play in the shadow of a guard tower.

"There's so much that you tell in that one picture," says Takei. "That's the art."

"So many of your memories are of how perceptive you are to things that are going on around you," adds Lee, "but also still approaching things from a child's perspective."

Even though the events in My Lost Freedom took place more than 80 years ago, illustrator Michelle Lee and author George Takei say the story is still very relevant today.

"These themes of displacement and uprooting of communities from one place to another — these are things that are constantly happening," says Lee. Because of war and because of political decisions ... those themes aren't uncommon. They're universal."

Takei agrees. "People need to know the lessons and learn that lesson and apply it to hard times today. And we hope that a lot of people get the book and read it to their children or read it to other children and act on it."

He's done his job, he says, now the readers have their job.

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A gripping account of Captain Cook’s final voyage

‘the wide wide sea,’ by hampton sides, recounts cook’s search for the northwest passage.

I’m grateful to the Santa Fe bookseller who put Hampton Sides’s “Blood and Thunder” into my hands some years ago. With Kit Carson’s death-defying exploits at its center, the book revolutionized my concept of America’s westward expansion. Sides’s latest effort, “ The Wide Wide Sea ,” is a gripping account of Captain James Cook’s final voyage.

Cook is a controversial historical figure, especially in light of increasing consciousness about the evils of colonialism. Yet he continues to evoke curiosity and attention. As recently as last month, Popular Mechanics published an article about the rediscovery of his curated shell collection.

Sides does not skirt the rapacious appetites of the British and other European monarchies. The magic of this book, however, is in the details of the explorer’s life at sea. Sides relies on Cook’s writings as well those of other sailors on the voyage. Based on the selected bibliography he includes, Sides’s research was voluminous.

Cook had made two world voyages by the time the book opens. He was a celebrity, having “risen from virtually nothing.” At sea, he’d bucked the Royal Navy’s tradition of violence and cruelty. He’d figured out how to avoid scurvy and brought home information of incomparable value, had mastered new nautical instruments and served as an expert scientist, anthropologist and navigator. His mapmaking skills were superlative.

After only six months at home, he took off again, in search of the elusive Northwest Passage . His third expedition consisted of 180 people in two wooden ships, the Resolution and the Discovery. They left England in July 1776.

In addition to Cook’s story, other narratives weave through the book. One particularly fascinating account is that of Mai, a native of Raiatea, a volcanic island 130 miles northwest of present-day Tahiti. When Mai was a boy, warriors from Bora Bora invaded Raiatea, murdered his father, seized his family’s land and enslaved much of the population, forcing his family to take refuge in Tahiti. In 1767, a teenage Mai witnessed the English navy’s firepower when Samuel Wallis, a British navigator, arrived in the HMS Dolphin and fought the Tahitians. Vowing to avenge his people against Bora Bora, Mai concluded that English guns were the way to go. When Cook sailed in seven years later on his second Pacific voyage, Mai requested passage, becoming the first Polynesian to set foot on English soil.

Mai’s story reads as metaphor for colonialism. He learned English and was wined and dined as a celebrity. Although horrified by London’s grinding poverty, unthinkable in his homeland, he wore the local dress and adopted the manners of a foppish English gentleman. He met King George, who provided Mai and Cook with a large assortment of farm animals and domesticated birds, to cement the king’s footprint around the globe. No surprise — the animals were hell to care for. Mai had been in search of heavy artillery from King George, but for the voyage was given only an “arsenal of muskets [and] broadswords,” as well as gifts that would have been unimaginable to the Polynesians — cut-glass bows, laced hats, crockery and telescopes. If not the cache Mai hoped for, it does reflect the English royalty’s strategy for winning friends.

It isn’t possible in this short space to describe Sides’s hair-raising accounts of the journey, an itinerary that led from England to present-day South Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, Hawaii, north to Alaska and beyond, and back to Hawaii. Just repairing and re-provisioning the ship required herculean efforts. The physical threats included days-long ocean storms, fog so thick it wasn’t possible to see from stern to bow and cold temperatures against which no garment could protect.

By the time Cook reached Polynesia in October 1777, the rat infestation was so great that “the vermin had all but taken over the holds, gangways, and lower decks.” At Moorea, 12 miles from Tahiti, Cook created a “swinging bridge” from ropes to lure the rats on land. A few made it to the beaches, introducing Polynesia to the European black rats, which remain a “scourge” today.

Cook understood that his men were vectors for infection. An ascetic, he occasionally stopped his men from going ashore to prevent the spread of venereal disease. At times he restrained his crew from violence; at other times, his temper was uncontrollable. After a series of petty thefts from the ship by Tongo natives, Cook ordered brutal floggings and had a villager’s ears cut off. In punishment for one Moorea person stealing a goat, Cook had the village and its cropland torched, along with its canoes. Sides suggests that over the course of this final voyage, Cook may have been suffering declining mental faculties.

By August 1778, the two ships were in the Arctic Ocean sailing toward Siberia. Cook was careful, “zagging outward if the pincers of ice began to close in on his vessels.” When he finally concluded there was no Northwest Passage, he decided to salvage his “defeat,” by doing “reconnaissance work in Hawai’i.” A man onboard wrote, “Those who have been amongst ice, in the dread of being enclosed in it, and in so late a season, can be the best judge of the general joy this news gave.”

People tend to know Cook was killed by native people in Hawaii. The events leading up to his death are gruesome and upsetting, including “cannibalism” made more explicable in Sides’s measured account.

This book captures a time when Europeans were finding unfathomable new worlds. Armed with extensive research and terrific writing, Sides re-creates the newness of the experience, the vast differences in and among Indigenous cultures, and natural phenomena that were as terrifying as they were wondrous.

Martha Anne Toll’s prizewinning debut novel, “Three Muses,” was published in 2022. Her second novel, “Duet for One,” is forthcoming in early 2025.

The Wide Wide Sea

Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

By Hampton Sides

Doubleday. 432 pp. $35

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