Wendy Darling

September 1, 2015

Gr 8 Up-Wendy Darling is miserable. Her father has just forbidden the 16-year-old from seeing her true love, she is fighting with her brother John, and little brother Michael is sobbing because their parents have gone out for the evening. She is shocked out of her anguish when a young man materializes in their midst-Peter Pan. Initially terrified, the siblings are soon captivated by the flying boy. Wendy finds him attractive, and when Peter offers to take them to Neverland, she agrees, feeling a spot of adventure will be a welcome diversion. This Peter Pan story may sound familiar, but the tale takes a darker turn when the children arrive on Pan Island in Neverland. The longer they stay on the island, the harder they find it to remember their former lives. It soon becomes apparent that Peter, far from a naive boy who won't grow up, is a cunning, manipulative leader. This is Neverland crossed with William Golding's Lord of the Flies; there is jealousy, anger, maliciousness, and death. And this Peter Pan is a young man who has his sinister sights set on Wendy. When she begins to remember her past and expresses a desire to return home, Peter turns cruel and abusive. During the rest of the action-packed novel, she tries to escape him and the dangers of the island with her brothers in tow. VERDICT A dark twist on a familiar tale that readers will have difficulty putting down.-Nancy Nadig, Penn Manor School District, Lancaster, PA

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2015
The fashion for grimdark retellings of childhood classics tackles Peter Pan in the first of a trilogy. Wendy Darling tries to be a proper young lady despite her forbidden romance with a bookseller's son. Yet when a strange, beautiful, flying (!) youth tempts her and her younger brothers to abandon stodgy Edwardian London, she yields to long-suppressed yearnings for adventure. Described in lush, lingering detail, Neverland is all that Peter Pan promises: vibrant, gorgeous, filled with magic and excitement. But it also harbors unexpected dangers...perhaps none greater than Peter himself. Most of the familiar characters appear, although with disturbing twists: the Darling parents are snobbish and ineffectual, John condescending and cruel, the Lost Boys feral and dissolute, and Tink broken and insane. Selfish, seductive, and sociopathic, Peter himself displays little of his customary childlike innocence or fey charm. Instead, he seems stuck in perpetual adolescence: pure id, churning with chaotic aggression and barely leashed appetites. While she is initially intoxicated by his charisma, Wendy's practical good sense, stubborn loyalty, and newly liberated fire give her the courage to defy Peter...only to land, in a stunning cliffhanger, in even worse peril. Dark, even horrific in its graphic bloodshed and psychological menace; but the nuanced portrayals-of a hero frequently excused by his whimsical glamour and a heroine too often dismissed as girlishly insipid-are riveting. (Fantasy. 14 & up)

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