Momo is a weird book: It clearly has the potential to be and to feel very profound. But it was never quite that for me. Maybe it's that the capitalism criticism is just too open and too jarring when mixed with the magical elements? Maybe it's that Momo herself, as a character, always kept her distance to me. I don't know. It's a good book, but it never quite reached "great" for me.

Lukas, and Jim, their steam locomotive Emma, and their shared adventures fascinated me a lot. I remember being read these stories (and drawing in the book) when I was three, and I loved them to pieces. Later at the mature age of five I found out about the marionette theatre version – a four part musical by the wonderful Augsburger Puppenkiste, and I … fanboyed.

The second part of the Jim Button series is still super imaginary, and this time concerns rebuilding (well, expanding, really). It's fun, but lacks the deep strength of the first part. Also, finding out that Jim is a descendant of one of the Three Kings is random and when I re-read the book, I was confused and suspicious about Ende's motivation.

This is the Michael Ende book that I'm most meh about – I think I may have read it a bit late for its intended audence group? Or maybe it's just that his other books tend to be so profound that this one looks trivial next to them.