The 3 best books by Michael Ende

There are two fantastic readings absolutely necessary for every kid starting out in literature. One is The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and the other is The endless story, Michael Ende. In this order. Call me nostalgic, but I do not think it is a crazy idea to raise that reading foundation, unfading despite the progress of time. It is not about considering that one's childhood and youth is the best, Rather, it is about rescuing the best of each time so that it transcends more "accessory" creations..

As it usually happens on so many other occasions, the masterpiece, the gigantic great creation of an author ends up overshadowing it. Michael Ende wrote more than twenty books, but in the end his Neverending Story (made into a movie and recently revised for today's kids), ended up being that unattainable creation even for the author himself sitting again and again in front of his writing corner. There could be no replica or continuation for the perfect work. Resignation, friend Ende, consider that you succeeded, although this was your own later limitation ...

Undoubtedly, in my particular ranking of 3 best works, the Neverending Story will be at the top, but it is fair to rescue other good novels by this author.

3 recommended novels by Michael Ende:

The endless story

I will always remember that this book came into my hands during a convalescence. I was 14 years old and I had broken a couple of bones, one in my arm and one in my leg. I would sit on the balcony of my house and read The Neverending Story. The physical limitation of my ultimate reality mattered little.

It mattered little because I ended up escaping from that balcony in the late summer and finding my way to the country of Fantasy.

Summary: What is Fantasy? Fantasy is the Neverending Story. Where it is written that story? In a book with copper-colored covers. Where is that book? Then I was in the attic of a school... These are the three questions that Deep Thinkers ask, and the three simple answers they receive from Bastian.

But to really know what Fantasy is, you have to read that, that is, this book. The one in your hands. The Childish Empress is mortally ill and her kingdom is in grave danger.

Salvation depends on Atreyu, a brave warrior from the greenskins tribe, and Bastián, a shy boy who passionately reads a magical book. A thousand adventures will take you to meet and meet a fabulous gallery of characters, and together shape one of the great creations of literature of all time.

momo

Logically, as soon as I discovered Ende, I devoted myself to his work with passion. I remember a certain disappointment, a kind of emptiness with what was new I was reading, until Momo arrived and I half regained my faith, the hope that Ende's imagination had not been taken over by the muses on a single occasion.

Over time, and to be fair, I already know how to recognize that genius is not easily replicable. It is even necessary that it be so in order to recognize the lofty brilliance of the higher.

Summary: Momo is a little girl who lives in the ruins of an amphitheater in a large Italian city. She is happy, good, loving, with many friends, and has a great virtue: knowing how to listen. For this reason, she is a person to whom many people go to vent and count their sorrows, since she is capable of finding a solution for all problems.

However, a threat pounces on the tranquility of the city and seeks to destroy the peace of its inhabitants. The Gray Men arrive, strange beings who live parasitizing on men's time, and convince the city to give them its time.

But Momo, due to her unique personality, will be the main obstacle for these beings, so they will try to get rid of her. Momo, with the help of a turtle and a strange Time Owner, will manage to save his friends and restore normalcy to his city, forever ending the men of time.

The mirror in the mirror

Ende, of course, also cultivated narrative for adults. It is likely that his tendency to the fantastic, his delving into worlds so profuse for the imagination, ended up filling his narrative proposal for adults with a certain exuberance.

In this book of stories we are presented with worldly stories passed through this process of deformation of the imagination. The world of adults represented with its surreal point, where conflicts, love or even war are the result of children who did not learn to see the contradictions of the world.

Summary: The thirty stories of The Mirror in the Mirror make up a delicious literary labyrinth in which mythological, Kafkaesque and Borgean echoes resonate. Michael Ende delves into themes such as the search for identity, the desolation of war, love, the absurdity of a society given over to commercialism, magic, anguish, the lack of freedom and imagination, among others.

Themes that are woven together with an endless number of stories, settings and characters such as, for example, Hor, who lives in a gigantic building, completely empty, where each word spoken aloud generates an infinite echo.

Or the boy who, under the expert guidance of his father and teacher, dreams of having wings and creates them pen by pen, muscle by muscle.

Or the railway cathedral that contains the temple to money and floats over the empty and twilight space, denying the travelers the exit.

Or the procession that comes down from the Mountains of Heaven in search of the lost word. Angels that roar with the sound of brass, dancers that perpetually spin behind the curtain, astronauts that drag rams, doors erected in the middle of nowhere? These are just a few of the many elements of a book that is a pleasure and a challenge for the reader.