["The Neverending Story"] is a fantasy epic with all the requisite elements of the genre: chimerical creatures, exotic forests and mountains, unpronounceable proper names, a picaresque plot predicated on a Great Quest, magical swords and amulets, chivalric protocol, high melodrama, a virtuous empress, a heroic little fat boy and a moral vision of Manichaean simplicity. The novel is splashed generously with literary color but, as though that weren't enough, it is also printed in alternate sections of red and green type. Over all, the effect is lighthearted and festive. This rather large book is full of small charms and seems admirably suited for reading aloud, in installments, at the bedside of a 7-year-old child.

But a curious thing about "The Neverending Story" is that certain adults are evidently inclined to take it quite seriously. According to its American publisher, the book was first published in Germany "rather quietly...