The Neverending Story
Way before His Dark Materials and Harry Potter, there was a book called The Neverending Story by the German writer Michael Ende. It impacted on my consciousness in 1983, which just goes to confirm how truly ancient I am, but there you have it.
The reason I'm bringing it up today, is that it's one of those classics of high fantasy for children and young adults that you may not ever have stumbled across. It's astonishing and a keeper. Its pages contain heroes and anti-heroes, a luck dragon, a childlike empress, a werewolf and interlocking worlds.
I need to re-read it because it's been at least a decade since the last go-round, but time gets that way. One day you're reading a book straight through with a flashlight under a doona at 2 am and the next moment you're positively ... cronelike.
So search out some old-school goodies like this one. If you love Susan Cooper, Phillip Pullman, JK Rowling, D M Cornish and D W Jones, you will LOVE this book.
And please tell me about any slightly forgotten about fantasy classics you think I should know about. I'm always on the look out.
