La emperatriz esta enferma y tiene que buscar el mejor futuro para su reino. ( )

Read this as a kid, when the second half of it made me feel uncomfortable: as a kid I never liked heroes turning into nasty selfish people even if they then got redeemed. Recently I rewatched the movie which of course cuts off halfway through the story because a) it's a really long story! and b) halfway through, Bastian wishes to look completely different, which is a lot easier to deal with in prose than on a movie screen.

Anyway so the movie ends with him riding Falkor back to the real world and becoming a bully chasing his former bullies and that's the happy ending. The book instead has him slowly turning into a bully in Fantasia _and it recognises this is kind of a big problem_ so yeah ultimately the book is waaaay superior to the film in every way - though I'll always envision the Childlike Empress as she was portrayed in the film.

(I do dream of getting a proper hardcover version with full-on illuminated chapter letters and two colours of text and an ouroboros on the cover and all!) ( )

I never did see the movie (except pictures of a white fluffy dog flying through air that must be the luck dragon), but this book wasn't anything like what I expected. It was much deeper and more profound a journey than would be expected in a children's book. In fact, I don't know if I would say it is a young adult or children's book. It seems much more of a subject matter for adults to enjoy.

If you like this book, try out 13 1/2 lives of Bluebear. ( )

It was pretty good. ( )

"...now he knew that there were thousands and thousands of forms of joy in the world, but that all were essentially one and the same, namely, the joy of being able to love."

The beginning bead magical and the end was just as magical, but there were some bits in the middle that could've used more editing/cutting. The parts included in the movie were all from the first half of the book (or maybe 2/3?) and the rest was entirely new material to me. Some of it was enchanting, but other parts were boring and I understood why they were not a part of the movie. ( )