If entering Fantastica through the pages and watching Bastian’s world fall away thrilled you, September’s leap from Omaha into Fairyland will feel like a kindred wonder. Like Bastian’s journey with Atreyu and Falkor, September meets enchanting allies (A‑Through‑L, a wyvern who’s part library) and tyrannical foes (the Marquess), and every choice reshapes who she’s becoming. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making captures that same heady mix of whimsy, danger, and heart as a real child navigates an unreal world—and returns changed.

You loved how Bastian’s reading transforms Fantastica—naming, wishing, and rewriting its fate with AURYN on his chest. In Inkheart, the boundary between page and world tears open when Mo reads villains like Capricorn out of a book and loses someone into it. As Meggie discovers her own voice’s power, the tale explores the same intoxicating, perilous magic of storytelling that let Bastian speak with the Childlike Empress and help mend a world, only here the words themselves are the spell.

If the nested reading experience—Bastian inside a book that starts speaking back—delighted you, The Princess Bride offers a playful mirror: a swashbuckling tale presented as an abridgment of a “classic” text, complete with author asides that shape how you read Westley’s duel with Inigo, Fezzik’s charm, and Buttercup’s peril. That self-aware frame, like the moment the Childlike Empress beckons Bastian to participate, invites you to be a co‑conspirator in the storytelling.

Bastian’s arc—power and wishcraft expanding until he nearly forgets his own name—echoes in Ged’s journey after he looses a shadow that hunts him. In A Wizard of Earthsea, true names carry weight, as AURYN’s inscription did for Bastian, and the path to healing demands humility and courage. If you were moved by Bastian’s struggle to remember who he is beyond glory and fantasy, Ged’s reckoning with his darker self will resonate deeply.

If riding Falkor past the Ivory Tower or watching Atreyu cross the Swamps of Sadness filled you with awe, Milo’s trip through Dictionopolis and Digitopolis will spark the same sense of playful discovery. With companions like Tock and the Humbug and a quest to restore Rhyme and Reason, The Phantom Tollbooth turns wonder into a map—much as The Neverending Story turns imagination into salvation against the Nothing.