Read It? Nope.

I’ve come across another book meant to continue the story of Peter Pan. Or rather Wendy. Forever Neverland by Heather Killough-Walden.

I haven’t read it, but from the description I am not inclined to do so. It doesn’t fit into the established world of Barrie. I suppose it could, if one is to assume that it’s one of the other adventures of Wendy in the Neverland (when she goes back a few times for Spring Cleaning.) But then, there’s the rest of it, which automatically negates the adventure in the first place. Even if I were to accept Hook still being alive and a flying pirate ship (open for debate, see here) and a grown up Peter... it seems reading the original story hasn’t taken place, as evidenced by the first line. Peter Pan came back the very next year. And the Darling children spent way longer than “several days and nights” on the island! [That timeframe isn't even true if going by the Disney version in which they came back the same night!]  And why would John and Michael get bullied at school?  They stood up to and killed pirates, for goodness' sake!  Thus, by these errors alone, this book can be dismissed by Pan fans who care about the source material.

It has been five years since Wendy Darling and her brothers returned home after a harrowing ordeal in which they'd "gone missing" for several days and nights. To Wendy, they returned by fairy magic, fresh from the fight with Captain Hook, a little mussed up but none the worse for wear.

But to the rest of the world, Wendy and her brothers were abducted and put through such a traumatic experience, Wendy has subconsciously taken to hiding the truth from her brothers and herself by making up stories. Fairy stories – about a boy named Peter Pan and a world called Neverland.

Life is anything but a fairy story for them now. Wendy is being subjected to unwanted psychiatric therapy, her brothers are bullied at school, and the family is falling apart.

Then, one mist-filled night, a billowing black flag parts the clouds in the sky like the fin of a shark. It bears the stark white symbol of a skull and crossbones upon it.

Wendy has been forced to leave Neverland behind. But it is far from finished with her. In the blink of an eye, her world is once more turned upside down by a pixie in human form, a one-handed captain far more handsome and intriguing than she remembered him to be – and by a little boy… who grew up after all.