The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (Discovery)

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende explores the incredible world of Fantastica and how the shy, awkward boy Bastian Balthazar Bux fits into this world. While running away from bullies Bastian runs into a bookstore where he is mesmerized by an ornate book with two intertwining snakes on the front called The Neverending Story. Feeling a connection to the book, on an impulse, Bastian steals it and hides in the attic of his school where he unsuspectingly discovers a world and a mission in another world that will inadvertently change his life in the human world too. As Bastian reads this book he reflects on his own life compared to the characters he begins to bond with as he reads. He sees his life through a narrow lens, only viewing himself the way other people do. It never even crosses his mind that there is value in who he is. Soon he becomes a part of the story. A real character in this story, alongside the characters he was recently huddled in an attic reading about. He also finds his appearance is not only expected but eagerly anticipated as he holds the power to save this world from ruin. He discovers he is the hero he has always wished to become and can be the way he has always wanted to be (or is it more the way he thinks everyone else wanted him to be?). However, these changes come at a cost. Bastian loses a memory for every "wish" he makes to change himself. This journey continues, with twists and turns as Bastian creates his new self but finds that in the process brings more harm than good to himself and Fantastica. In the end Bastian loses all of his memories of his former self and needs his new friends to remind him of who he truly is to gain access to the Waters of Life and return to his world. The Waters of Life instruct Bastian that he must give up all the gifts he had been given in Fantastica to return to his world. In the moments walking to the waters the gifts fall away and Bastian is unsure and scared. But when he jumps into the waters of life he is "newborn" and he discovered in those moments that he was "now the very person he wanted to be. If he had been free to choose, he would have chosen to be no one else." By becoming the thing he thought he wanted to be and losing himself, Bastian discovered that he, as himself, is valuable and that there is nothing greater than discovering who you really are. When Bastian returns to the human world, confident in who he is as he is, he finds that the cure to the sad state of affairs that his life was before was himself! All he needed was to be him. A Dr. Seuss quote comes to mind that I think perfectly describes what Bastian discovers to be true: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one around who is youer than you."