Michael Ende's masterpiece, The Neverending Story was first published in Germany in 1979, where it quickly became a favourite.... printed originally in two colours, red and green, the book mirrored the "fictional" book within the text, red showing the parts of the book dealing with Bastian Balthazar Bux and our world, the green being for the hero Atreyu and Fantasica... of course, as the book progresses, this colour scheme does become mixed up... some later editions introduced the idea of using different typefaces, but this was not well received, as it detracts from the meaning and intent of the original... the tale of Atreyu and Bastian's search for the cause of fantasicas destruction leads on to even further magical adventures befor ethe realisation of both their quests.... many parts of the book were omitted from the film, and some ideas were used in the second, but the book itself far outpasses the vision of the movies.... the book is still in print, and is a must-read for any fantasy fan.... another book by the same author which may interest you is the modern fairy tale, "Momo"