The book of lost things

Studio Ghibli has said that John Connolly's novel was among Miyazaki's inspirations for The Boy and the Heron. Both follow a boy grieving his mother during the Second World War, resentful of the woman who has taken her place, who passes into another world and meets a sinister guide there.

Connolly's novel is built out of Grimm tales retold as they would be if they meant it. A boy whose mother has died walks into a wood and finds himself inside the stories she read to him, and the stories do not behave. Named and reworked inside it: Little Red Riding Hood, whose encounter with the wolf has consequences the tale does not record and produces the Loups; Snow White, whose dwarfs are unionised and resentful; Hansel and Gretel; and Rumpelstiltskin, who becomes the Crooked Man and the book's antagonist. Connolly appended his own versions of the source tales to the novel, which is about as explicit as a writer gets about where a book came from.

John Connolly has named Michael Ende among the writers he admired and who influenced his imagination, alongside authors such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Like The Neverending Story, it features: A lonely child protagonist escaping into a fantasy realm. A fantasy world that reflects the protagonist's emotional and psychological state. A coming-of-age journey where the adventure is tied to personal growth rather than simply defeating a villain.