The Night of Wishes (Paperback)

by Michael Ende (Author), Regina Kehn (Illustrator), Heike Schwarzbauer (Translator), Rick Takvorian (Translator) "Pitch blackness had settled much earlier than usual over this, the last afternoon of the year..." (more)
Key Phrases: Father New Year, Jacob Scribble, Notion Potion (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
PW dubbed this "a potent dose of comic fantasy, bubbling over with clever wordplay and slapstick incidents, and spiked with verse." Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A comic adventure spiced with rambunctious wordplay. . .Clever and highly imaginative."-Pointer, Kirkus Reviews

"Refreshing and irreverent and silly." --The New York Times Book Review
-- Review

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (April 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374455031
• ISBN-13: 978-0374455033
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #504,878 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastically Twisted!, October 20, 2002

By	"grograman" (US) - See all my reviews

I love this story both for its uniqueness and darkness. Everything about it is infinitely creative and original, from the thumb-striking clock that marks the passage of time with an "ouch" instead of the same old "cuckoo," to the fantastically twisted characters. However, this is not really a book for children. I think it is best read by teens and adults, (or mature younger readers!) The story involves two wicked individuals working for the Devil Himself to destroy the world. There is still hope though, in two raggedy animals who have just one night to foil their masters' plans! For an extra fun experience, I suggest you read this book in real time. It takes place in the course of that single evening, and there is even a clock every few pages to let you know how much time remains! If you crave dark stuff, or just enjoy really original stories, you'll fall in love with THE NIGHT OF WISHES!

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book - but read the original!, October 20, 1998

By A Customer

This is my favorite book since I've read it 5 years ago. The cat (a little dumb) und the always so pessimistic raven are well worked-out caracters and I really love them. Sometimes I wonder how Mr. Ende managed to invent all those words to describe the ingredients of the notion potion. Beeing German I know both versions - the German original and the English translation, which sometimes does not manage to give all the brilliant word-inventions an equal English meaning. So if you understand some German - buy both versions and you'll enjoy Michael Endes magic.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you like the Addams Family, you'll like this., January 9, 2005

By	Orion Sandstorrm - See all my reviews

Due to the particular flavor of dark humor which is abundantly used in the writing, this book feels like a cross between Roald Dahl's books and the Addams Family. Compared to Michael Ende's other books, this one is by far the funniest, the least frightening, and with the least philosophizing. (Which is to say, this book is still scarier and more philosophical than most fiction. But still funnier than most, too.)

It also has the best English translation of all his books... two people worked on it together, and they did a good job: you'd never guess it was in German. Poor guys, this book is thick with puns and rhymes and poems, and they made all of them work in English!

The entire story takes place between 5pm and Midnight of New Year's Eve. Instead of ellipses, clocks divide the paragraphs, showing how much time is left. I read a bit of it aloud and checked... it's written in real-time! It's so perfectly paced that you really could read it from 5 to 12 if you wanted to. How unique!

An evil sorceror (primarily a mad scientist) has discovered that he hasn't fulfilled his quota of wickedness for that year, which means the devil is finally coming to collect his soul. (Not in person, of cousre. The devil's a busy fellow these days.) As it turns out, his the witch who has been funding his experiments (who happens to be his aunt) comes to visit, and it turns out she has the same problem. They collaborate on a spell so dreadful that it can fulfill their entire remaining quota: a New Year's draught upon which all your wishes come true. However, their raven and cat (who are really spies from Nature) hear this and set out for their own last-minute dash to try and stop them.

The plot is good. No holes. Well-written ending. Excellent dialogue and characters. The story is metaphorical and meaningful in real life, but not to the startling extent of Momo or Neverending Story.

I'm not sure what audience this book is for. On the one hand, it appears to be a children's book, especially with the talking cat and raven being main characters. Then again, most of the book is about some bad guys making a hexed mixed drink, which I guess is acceptable fare for kids in Germany, but people in other places may find that inappropriate. Unlike Ende's other work, it seems to be very mainstream Christian in its worldset and worldview, with constant references to hell and heaven and so on, but the detailed descriptions of how the bad guys do their evil magic would doubtless make most mainstream Christians (the not-so-smart ones, anyway) shriek and burn the book. Everybody else would enjoy those bits, since the weird things that go into the drink are fun to read about.

It is with great astonishment that I realise Ende must have illustrated this book himself. The illustrations are fantastic, and contain a good part of the humor. They're very professional, stylized consistently, and well-textured. The charicaturizations feel natural, with no trace of the "I can't draw, but I'm illustrating this anyway!" look I would have expected. Apparently in the time between writing this and "Momo," Ende had taken it upon himself to become a really good illustrator. Is there anything this guy can't do?

All said, it's not my absolute favorite of Ende's books... it's still a tie between Neverending and Momo... I'm not sure what kind of people to recommend it to, aside from all people who are fanatics for Roald Dahl and Addams Family... but it's still a ton of fun, hysterical at many points, and better than quite a bit of other fiction.