The NeverEnding Story

A survey conducted by German filmmaker Ulli Pfau found that The Neverending Story appeals particularly to readers aged 18–35.

It remains most successful in Germany and Japan, while the 1984 film tends to be better-known among English-speaking audiences.

In The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature, literary critic Maria Nikolajeva states that "the two parts of the novel repeat each other" in that Bastian becomes a hero but then in the second half he "acts not even as an antihero but as a false hero of the fairy tale" and the characters of Bastian and Atreyu can also be seen as mirror halves.