Peter Pan by Golden Books, Walt Disney Studios (Illustrator), John Hench (Adapted by)

From the Publisher

"I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go!"Three lucky children are about to discover a magical world beyond the clouds called Neverland. In Neverland, there is no school and no rules and children can play all day. In Neverland they meet Peter Pan and have lots of exciting adventures. It's a dream come true!But no dream last forever. After all, every child has to grow up sometime. Unless, of course, that child is named Peter Pan.This beloved fantasy classic has been brought to life with lavish new illustrations from Charles Vess, a World Fantasy Award winner for Best Artist.

Publishers Weekly

For those who want to revisit Neverland via J.M. Barrie's original tale, two new recorded editions of Peter Pan are just the ticket. Tim Curry, fresh from narrating the sequel Peter Pan in Scarlet (reviewed above) reads the original for Simon & Schuster Audio, and Jim Dale, the much-lauded voice of the Harry Potter audiobooks, takes on the title for Listening Library. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

The Darling children, while drifting off to sleep, have often spoken to their mother of Peter Pan but she never quite understands. That is, until the night that the mischievous imp and his companion fairy, Tinker Bell, return to the Darling house to find his lost shadow. It is here that the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael, receive their first flying lesson, and the first of many other adventures as they are whisked away to Peter's fanciful island of Neverland. This version of Barrie's classic tale is accompanied by the playful illustrations of the highly talented Trina Schart Hyman. Her full-page acrylic paintings particularly depict waif-like characters captured in subtle earthy tones. Her illustrations are done with such careful detail that one cannot help stop reading to study the pictures. Even so, they do not detract from the story itself;they simply add another dimension to the dreamlike quality of Neverland itself. This wonderful version of Peter Pan surely belongs in any home dedicated to the reading of quality literature. 2001, Scribner/Simon & Schuster, $25.00. Ages 7 up. Reviewer:Trina Heidt

Children's Literature

Tim Curry has a wonderful, sonorous voice. He draws the listener into this unabridged recording of the classic children's story, Peter Pan. With his voice, Mrs. Darling is tender and gay; and her husband, a bit stodgy and humorless. Wendy is carefree, yet responsible; Peter, the boy who won't grow up, is an adventurer—impulsive, petulant, and loyal. Mr. Curry does an excellent job of making Captain Hook fierce and menacing. And he does justice to all of the other characters, John and Michael, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, the Redskins, and the pirates. They come to life through Mr. Curry's skillful and talented inflections. But, because the recording is unabridged, there are many places where the story loses its momentum. When the narrator goes on and on explaining or describing things between action scenes, children may lose interest or let their minds wander. This happens early on with the author's prose setting the stage for the arrival of Peter Pan. When it becomes clear that the Darling children are game for an adventure with Peter Pan, the pace picks up. Curry does his best to hold the listener's interest, and for older children, more familiar with some of the sophisticated vocabulary, it will be easier to stick with the whole story. In this fantasy, the Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, have a nanny, who also happens to be a dog. The narrator explains that the family is poor, and so cannot afford another nanny. But Nana the dog turns out to be a very competent caretaker. Listeners also learn that Mrs. Darling, like other mothers, "rummage" through their children's minds each night when they are asleep—this being done to put things in order. This is howMrs. Darling first learns about Peter Pan. She actually sees him one night. When Peter, who has all his baby teeth, sees that Mrs. Darling is a grown up, he flees—but not before Nana catches his shadow. Of course, Peter must return for his shadow, and on that occasion, convinces Wendy, who convinces John and Michael, to fly with him to Neverland. A little bit of fairy dust, and they fly out of the window, up into the sky and over to Neverland. One million "golden arrows," courtesy of the sun, point the way as the children get close to the much anticipated island, where adventures await them. Peter takes Wendy to the Lost Boys, who live underground to hide from the pirates. The lost boys plead with Wendy to be their "mother." She takes her new role very seriously, reading bedtime stories to the boys, and giving them their "medicine" (only water). Wendy is content, but John and Michael long for adventure. Soon they learn about Captain Hook, and how he lost his arm. During a fight, Peter threw his arm to the crocodile in the lagoon. This crocodile, which terrifies the captain, once swallowed a clock and so "tick tocks" its presence wherever it swims. Hook hates Peter for his cockiness and vows revenge. There is also Tiger Lily, the beautiful "Redskin" who is captured by the Pirates when she is caught trying to board their ship with a knife in her mouth. Peter saves her with his bravery and cunning. When the pirates discover the home of the lost boys, they hatch a plot to kidnap the boys and make them walk the plank and to steal Wendy to be their own mother. Before the pirates put this plan into action, Wendy decides it is time to go home—she misses her own mother. She convinces her brother and the lost boys to return with her. Wendy assures the lost boys that her mother will adopt them. She pleads with Peter to come also: he asks her if he will have to go to school, if he will have to "grow up" essentially. When she tells him yes, he refuses. As the children prepare to go home, the pirates ambush them and take them to the ship. Hook leaves poison for Peter. As he is about to drink it, Tinkerbell grabs it and drinks it herself so that Peter will not be poisoned. Listeners are told that Tinkerbell, who has been very jealous of Wendy, can only be saved if children believe in fairies. Alas, she is saved and Peter heads for the pirate ship to save his friends. The ensuing fight will engage listeners, as they hope that Peter will emerge the victor. Listeners will not be disappointed. After Peter wages his successful battle, Wendy and the children return home to find that their parents and Nana have missed them terribly. The Disney version of Peter Pan is very entertaining and, likely, the version with which many children are most familiar. The original story has many appealing parts, but also contains paragraphs that seem superfluous and detour from the main themes. This unabridged version may be suitable for long car trips and children with long attention spans. One thing to note about the vocabulary is its sometimes outmoded phrases: the book uses the term "Redskins" to describe the island natives, and also refers to them as "noble savages."

School Library Journal

Gr 3-7-- A pleasure to view, read, and hold, this new edition of an old favorite deserves space in every collection. From jacket painting, to cover (with Tinker Bell embossed in gold), to endpapers (dark maps of Neverland), Gustafson's artwork opens doors to glimpses of old friends and to new interpretations. Fifty oil paintings reveal expressive, changing characters. Peter Pan is dewy-cheeked, spry, wicked. Maternal Wendy is tender, then stoic. Even Hook is at times downcast. The Indians, proud and handsome, avoid stereotype. Masterly composition and use of light create dramatic full-page illustrations, accompanied by cameos of ordinary objects (kite, bear, tea kettle). Compared to Hague's illustrations for Peter Pan (Holt, 1987), which were dark and surreal, these are light and vital. Handsome bookmaking, Barrie's text, and Gustafson's pictures combine to breathe new life into Peter Pan's old shadow. --Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA

School Library Journal

Gr 2 Up-In this timeless classic by J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan teaches Wendy, John, and Michael to fly and takes them to his home in Neverland where they meet the Lost Boys. They have many adventures involving Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily, Indians, mermaids, and Captain Hook. Actor Jim Dale provides an engaging telling of the tale, using tone and pacing to weave a story full of suspense and excitement. His captivating style infuses each character with a distinct voice. This retelling will appeal to adults and children alike and is perfectly suited for family listening. Pair this with Dale's readings of Peter and the Starcatchers (Brilliance Audio, 2004) and Peter and the Shadow Thieves (Brilliance Audio, 2006). A must have for public and school libraries.-Maren Ostergard, King County Library System, Issaquah, WA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0736402381
  
• ISBN-13: 9780736402385
• Format: Paperback, 24pp
• Publisher: Random House Children's Books
• Pub. Date: January 2007
• Edition Description: ILLUSTRATE
• Sales Rank: 3,536
• Age Range: 5 to 6
• Series: Little Golden Book Series

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One
Peter Breaks Through
 
 
AII children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.
The way Mr Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was oneof those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.
Mrs Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs Darling’s guesses.
Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs Darling’s bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.
“Now don’t interrupt,” he would beg of her. “I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five nought nought in my chequebook makes eight nine seven,—who is that moving?— eight nine seven, dot and carry seven—don’t speak, my own—and the pound you lent to that man who came to the door—quiet, child—dot and carry child—there, you’ve done it!—did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine seven?”
 “Of course we can, George,” she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy’s favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.
“Remember mumps,” he warned her almost threateningly and off he went again. “Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it will be more like thirty shillings—don’t speak—measles one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six—don’t waggle your finger-whooping cough, say fifteen shillings”—and so on it went, and it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated as one.
There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower squeak; but both were kept, and soon you might have seen the three of them going in a row to Miss Fulsom’s Kindergarten school, accompanied by their nurse.
Mrs Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough she was at bath-time; and up at any moment of the night if one of her charges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery. She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience with and when it needs a stocking round your throat. She believed to her last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking sedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them back into line if they strayed. On John’s footer days she never once forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom’ s school where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk. She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs Darlings friends, but if they did come she first whipped off Michael’s pinafore and put him into the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John’s hair.
No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbours talked.
He had his position in the city to consider.
Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that she did not admire him. “I know she admires you tremendously, George,” Mrs Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget she looked in her long skirt and maid’s cap, though she had sworn, when engaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of those romps! And gayest of all was Mrs Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.
Mrs Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children’s minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
I don’t know whether you have ever seen a map of a person’s mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needlework, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, threepence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on; and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John‘s, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other’s nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact; not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are night-lights.
Occasionally in her travels through her children’s minds Mrs Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael’s minds, while Wendy’s began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.
“Yes, he is rather cocky,” Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.
“But who is he, my pet?”
“He is Peter Pan, you know, mother.”
At first Mrs Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him; as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.
“Besides,” she said to Wendy, “he would be grown up by this time.”
“Oh no, he isn’t grown up,” Wendy assured her confidently, “and he is just my size.” She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn’t know how she knew it, she just knew it.
Mrs Darling consulted Mr Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. “Mark my words,” he said, “it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow over.”
But it would not blow over; and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs Darling quite a shock.
Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they met their dead father and had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant smile:
“I do believe it is that Peter again!”
“Whatever do you mean, Wendy?”
“It is so naughty of him not to wipe,” Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn’t know how she knew, she just knew.
“What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without knocking.”
“I think he comes in by the window,” she said.
“My love, it is three floors up.”
“Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?”
It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.
Mrs Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.
“My child,” the mother cried, “why did you not tell me of this before?”
“I forgot,” said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.
Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.
But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs Darling examined them carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the floor, peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled the poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a tape from the window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without so much as a spout to climb up by.
Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.
But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be said to have begun.
On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It happened to be Nana’s evening off, and Mrs Darling had bathed them and sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away into the land of sleep.
All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and sat down tranquilly by the fire to sew.
It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into shirts. The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three night-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs Darling’s lap. Then her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs Darling by the fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.
While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through the gap.
The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist, which darted about the room like a living thing; and I think it must have been this light that wakened Mrs Darling.
She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should have seen that he was very like Mrs Darling’s kiss. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of the trees; but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.
 
Copyright ©2003 by Charles Vess

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Peter Pan

Starscape

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Excerpted from Peter Pan by Barrie, J. M. Copyright © 2003 by Barrie, J. M.. Excerpted by permission.
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