Ende has an eye for vivid colors and is fairly imaginative in the creation of adventures [in The Neverending Story]. However, these adventures are not all especially connected and one gets the impression that often enough he was simply adding adventures just to pad out the text. The book is clearly written for children, since the author rather ostentatiously talks down to his readers, something which even as a child I found annoying. I found the title amply descriptive: the book is unendingly tedious and didactic, but since it sold a million copies in Germany, it must have interested a good many readers. Unfortunately I was not one of them.

Paul M. Lloyd, in a review of "The Neverending Story," in Fantasy Review, Vol. 7, No. 4, May, 1984, p. 30.