Posted on  20/08/2024 13:30:28

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Anni's pick for my "Tell me your favorite standalone and I'll read it" BINGO

I didn't even know this book existed till Anni recommended it. And boy am I glad I read it! Because it was so lovely and charming!!! Fabulous!

Momo, is a ragged little waif, who had set up house beneath the stage of an old ruined amphitheatre. Small and thin, with an unruly mop of jet-black hair that looked as if it had never seen a comb or a pair of scissors, she is most always barefoot and wears an ankle-length dress that's more like a mass of patches of different colours and over it, a too big for her man's jacket with the sleeves turned up at the wrists. In a word, she is different!

Momo - the movie

But despite being different, or perhaps precisely because of it, Momo becomes indispensable to the people in the neighbourhood. She couldn't sing like a bird or play an instrument, she couldn't do tricks and knew no magic either.
'No. What Momo was better at than anyone else was listening.
Anyone can listen, you may say - what's so special about that? - but you'd be wrong. Very few people know how to listen properly and Momo's way of listening was quite unique.'

I'm not going to spoil and tell you how unique, you'll have to read and find that out. Suffice it to say that her way of listening made the words "Why not go and see Momo?" a stock phrase with the local inhabitants.

One day, sinister men in grey arrive and are silently starting to take over the city. They are drawing life-blood from the unsuspecting inhabitants. They are the time-thieves.
The men in grey - Momo the movie

Lots of things take time and time was Momo's only form of wealth.
So of course she is the first to notice that something is wrong.

Everyone started to "save" time for later. They started to rush and to hurry, to fall prey to the men in grey.
And
People never seemed to notice that by saving time they were loosing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming even poorer, bleaker and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them anymore. But time is life itself and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved the less they had.

Momo, with her uncanny ability to listen, her simplicity and honesty, holds the key to salvation. She is the only one who can resist these soulless, corrupt creatures. So she sets out to destroy them and wrestle the time of her friends back from them.
Guided by a strangely gifted tortoise, Cassiopeia, Momo finds her way to the mysterious Professor Hora, who promises help her.
Cassiopeia with words appearing on her shell: "KOMM MIT - German for FOLLOW ME -Momo the movie

I will not tell you what adventures Momo and Cassiopeia go through. You'll have to read to find that out. I'll only say that their journey was wonderful and exciting!

Peppered with passages that make the reader stop and think about time and life, and the meaning of living, this compelling story is one for readers of all ages. Intricate and deep, it challenges us to take a step back and reflect. Because after all,
Momo - Michael Ende quote

and it's like this:
'Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. .. And then you start to hurry... You work fater and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop - and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.'

In a grown-up world of hate, mistrust and haste in the pursuit of material gain,
"All the world's misfortunes stemmed from the countless untruths, both deliberate and unintentional, which people told because of haste or carelessness."

This is the story of a child teaching the grown-ups a lesson. The lesson that: "Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart."

And since we have plenty of time, we should make sure we listen!
Happy reading! :)

Grab a copy of the book HERE.