A magically evocative story to fulfill your deepest longings... Small, fat and insignificant, Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. One day he steals a mysterious book and hides away to read it--only to find himself stepping through its pages into the world of Fantastica. Enchanted, perilous, dying, Fantastica is waiting for a Messiah, its faery people doomed, until Bastian appears as their Saviour--and in doing so saves himself. (back cover)