Momo by Michael Ende

Momo is a little girl with a peculiar talent for listening. Friends flock to tell her their troubles, share their stories and play with her. Until the men in grey appear, and suddenly no one has the time.

Only Momo has noticed these shadowy figures, and it’s up to her to discover their sinister secret. Soon she’s on a magical and dangerous quest across the boundaries of time.

Momo is more than a children’s book. It’s a beautiful fable about consciousness and time. Here’s a line that lingered long after I’d read the book:

“But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.”

(Momo, by Micheal Ende, is translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn and published in English by Puffin Books. Age 9+)