Fantasy, normal boy, trip through fantasy world, desert made of salt

I rode this book at 2010 more or less. It was a book similar to Neverending story. It was a normal boy that enters a fantasy world and it has tu save it from evil.

The stuff I remember 100% it's that at the beginning of the first book the boy was having a class. It has more than two books, and on the begging of the second book the boy has to cross a desert made of salt instead of sand.

Then there are some details I'm not totally sure but I think the boy was doing the trip with a giant, one of the parents of the child was death or disappeared, the name (at least in Spanish) was similar to "Odisey" and there may be a enormous swan that helps the boy to get to a city

Is the The Talisman by King and Straub?

touchstone: The Talisman

No, it isn't. The boy go inside a fantasy World and all the plot of the first book and the beginign of the second one happens there if I'm not wrong. I don't know what happens in the other books of the saga because I didn't read them so I can't say more about the plot.

I remembered that when I searched about the second part of the book after finishing the first one I found it was in Italian, so I belived then that it was a book from a Italian autor but I'm not sure if it was like that or it was a coincidence that the book was transtated into Italian and not into Spanish. Maybe this about Italian autor helps with the research.

Ever found it? We MIGHT be looking for the same book, and I am unsure. I say this because all my tools point me toward the Never Ending Story when I look for my book; it's not that one. I've been searching for years already.
Here is what I can remember: https://www.librarything.com/topic/352062#n8182312