So, I'm sure that most of the people here are aware of the "authorized sequel" to Peter Pan. It all began when the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London called for, basically, a contest, and found Geraldine McCaughrean to write Peter Pan in Scarlet.
I admit that I ordered it and began to read it with great trepedition. I didn't see how it could possibly live up to J.M. Barrie's work. However, I was pleased to find it to be quite a lot of fun, in a very close approximation to Barrie's style.
It's a good story, but I'm not sure I care one way or the other about it being an "authorized sequel," as all the hype would have us believe is so important. I don't think that it's necessarily better than some of the other adaptations, prequels, and sequels that are out there by now.
Still, I think it's worth a read, if you like the Peter Pan mythology at all.
I had been really put off by this novel. There are a bunch of mistakes (fact-checking kind) as compared to Barrie's original stories. If it's an "official" sequel, how can it be inconsistent? With some exceptions here and there, I thought the story quite silly [in the bad sense] and didn't really go anywhere.
ReplyDeleteHave you read this one? It's based on Barrie's own idea for more: Click!
And this is a great read, too... it's a "What if?" adventure which takes the characters on a very path: Click!
BELIEVE!
I wasn't put off by this one. I found it to be consistent with Barrie's work and tone. That is to say: it's not that happy and it doesn't really go anywhere. I love Peter Pan, but it's not exactly an uplifting story in the end.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recommendations. Neverworld is on my list, but I hadn't seen the other one before.
But tone isn't being consistent enough, is it? She needs to not have fact-checking mistakes in it, such as the fact that one cannot fly without a shadow... if true, how did Peter Pan fly back for his in the first place? Peter went back to his mother's house twice, not once, as she says. Those are just a couple differences, and one is too many. I just think it's very disrespectful to not have cared enough to allow discrepencies with something that is supposed to be in direct line/extension of the original stories. As a writer doesn't it bother you? :)
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