Wow! An amazing read. The words and the language that Beagle uses just comes to life and paints pictures on the page. Other than the Red Bull and Momma Fortuna's death early on, this is a great book for both children and adults.

I saw the Rankin/Bass cartoon ages ago. And while my sister's watched it endlessly, I don't remember too much about it. I do know that Peter Beagle wrote the screenplay for it and I do remember it being mostly faithful to the book, except (and this caught me by surprise) Schmendrick the Magician seems much more like a jerk in the book, instead of an aloof, clumsy magician.

A must-read for everyone.