Peter Pan and Wendy - Hardcover

J.M. Barrie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0861632230 ISBN 13: 9780861632237

Publisher: Award Publications, 1988

Synopsis

This version of Barrie's famous story is retold by May Byron "for boys and girls with the approval of the author", and illustrated by Shirley Hughes.

About this title

Review:

"All children, except one, grow up." Thus begins a great classic of children's literature that we all remember as magical. What we tend to forget, because the tale of Peter Pan and Neverland has been so relentlessly boiled down, hashed up, and coated in saccharine, is that J.M. Barrie's original version is also witty, sophisticated, and delightfully odd. The Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, live a very proper middle-class life in Edwardian London, but they also happen to have a Newfoundland for a nurse. The text is full of such throwaway gems as "Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter Pan when she was tidying up her children's minds," and is peppered with deliberately obscure vocabulary including "embonpoint," "quietus," and "pluperfect." Lest we forget, it was written in 1904, a relatively innocent age in which a plot about abducted children must have seemed more safely fanciful. Also, perhaps, it was an age that expected more of its children's books, for Peter Pan has a suppleness, lightness, and intelligence that are "literary" in the best sense. In a typical exchange with the dastardly Captain Hook, Peter Pan describes himself as "youth... joy... a little bird that has broken out of the egg," and the author interjects: "This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form." A book for adult readers-aloud to revel in--and it just might teach young listeners to fly. (Ages 5 and older) --Richard Farr

Book Description:

An upscale classic edition, with the full text and illustrations from the internationally acclaimed Silke Leffler.

About this edition

• Publisher: Award Publications
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0861632230
• ISBN 13: 9780861632237
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 96
• Illustrator: Anne Grahame Johnstone