The Night of Wishes

Or the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion

New Year’s Eve is passing quickly. The Sorcerers’ Privy Councillor Beelzebub Irrwitzer and his aunt, the money witch Tyrannja Vamperl, are running out of time. They have not yet fulfilled their target of evil deeds, and that is not something their boss will be amused about. Jakob the raven and Maurizio the tom-cat witness how the pair of them come up with a satanic plan: With the help of the Notion Potion, the witch and sorcerer could still catch up on their backlog. Maurizio and Jakob have only a few hours left to prevent a disaster.
They are planning to poison rivers, to bring pandemics to the world and to manipulate the climate … Twenty years after it was first published, Michael Ende’s magic adventure is more relevant than ever. First and foremost, however, it is a great read full of sparkling humour and adventurous ideas.

Original Edition

  • Original title: Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch
  • Format: Hardcover
  • Pages: 240
  • Illustrations: Regina Kehn
  • Year of publication: 1989
  • Publisher: Thienemann
  • Translations:
    Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK & US), Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian

In English:

  • The Night of Wishes
    Hardcover, 224 pages, illustrated by Regina Kehn, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) 1995.

Press Reviews

"A comic adventure spiced with rambunctious wordplay ... Clever and highly imaginative."

Kirkus Reviews

 

"Refreshing and irreverent and silly."

The New York Times Book Review

Current Editions

In English:

  • The Night of Wishes or The Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion
    Hardcover, 224 pages, The NYR Children's Collection 2017

In German:

  • Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch
    Hardcover, 240 pages, illustrated by Regina Kehn, Thienemann 2019.
  • Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch
    E-Book, Thienemann 2017.