Peter and the Starcatchers

This was a wonderful fantasy adventure story. It felt classic and modern at the same time. I have read the original, but I've seen enough adaptations and things that I feel like Peter Pan is a modern fairy tale and this is a great treatment of it.

It was a really fun origin story, anyone who has even the least knowledge about Peter Pan will recognize how things are falling into place. The pirates, the island becoming neverland, etc. I felt connected to the character of Peter, and I loved the original character of Molly as well as the fun original elements of the Starcatchers and “star stuff”. I felt truly sad when Peter found out that he was not going to grow any older. I also liked that they never said how old he was, and implied that he was never really sure of his actual age anyway.

This book was really delightful and I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's first foray into kid-lit borrows Peter Pan and creates this story that happened before the events of James Barrie's classic. Here, Peter and some other orphans find themselves aboard the ship Never Land along with some mysterious cargo and a girl named Molly. In hot pursuit is the notorious pirate Black Stache. I read this aloud over many weeks to my kids. They were all ears and Luke (age 7) especially enjoyed it. There's a bit of humor sprinkled throughout and many thrilling adventures. The action is fairly tame although sometimes too intense for Kajsa (age 4). This book was popular enough to spawn three sequels to date. We'll see if there's interest in reading the next. But the next read-aloud book may be something different.