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mermaidsherbet's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Kidnapping
gymbeannz's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Everybody wants an adventure, but nobody wants to die while on one.
In your imagination though, there is no real danger. You can’t die, because you’re the hero. You get the thrill of adrenaline, and at the same time, there’s always an invisible safety net around you. There’s nothing to be afraid of because the danger is always under your control.
That is Neverland. That’s the adventure of Peter Pan.
But the story of Peter Pan is also a horror. I can’t read the book without feeling guilty of the childhood goodness that I have tucked away and forgotten about. And so, especially near the end of the book, I started asking myself if I’d forgotten how to fly, and I was too scared to answer truthfully.
In your imagination though, there is no real danger. You can’t die, because you’re the hero. You get the thrill of adrenaline, and at the same time, there’s always an invisible safety net around you. There’s nothing to be afraid of because the danger is always under your control.
That is Neverland. That’s the adventure of Peter Pan.
But the story of Peter Pan is also a horror. I can’t read the book without feeling guilty of the childhood goodness that I have tucked away and forgotten about. And so, especially near the end of the book, I started asking myself if I’d forgotten how to fly, and I was too scared to answer truthfully.
Content Warnings
Minor: Kidnapping
lectrixnoctis's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
James M. Barrie was the ninth of ten children born into a working-class religious family in Scotland. When Barrie was six years of age, his older brother David died at age 13 in a skating accident. After that, Barrie tried to cheer up his mother by writing stories, performing plays, and wearing David's clothes. James M. Barrie attended the University of Edinburgh and later wrote for various Scottish newspapers. One of his best-known works is "Peter Pan". However, it was first written as a play and later adapted into a novel. A few years before his death in 1927, J. M. Barrie donated all "Peter Pan" rights to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. In the year 1987, fifty years after Barrie's death, the copyright expired under UK law; however, the following year in a unique Act of Parlament restored the royalties, which means that even today, as long as the hospital exists, very sich children benefit from Berrie's generous gift.
The story begins in the nursery of the home of the Darlings, where Mrs Darling put her children to bed. She does seem supposed that all three children are thinking of a mysterious boy named Peter Pan. When Mrs Darling asks about him, her daughter Wendy explains that Peter does visit them when they are all fast asleep. One night when Mrs Darling is in the nursery, Peter Pan comes to visit. As he noticed the adult in the room, he jumps out of the window, but his shadow is trapped by the children's canine nanny Nana.
A few days later, Peter Pan revisit the Darling children. Since Nana is in the garden, Mr and Mrs Darling have left for a party and left the children unguarded. Wendy helps Peter secure his shadow back to himself, and he confesses that he has been listening to their bedtime stories to tell the lost boys them too. When he asks Wendy to visit them on Neverland, she hesitates but agrees. She and her brothers Jon and Micheal learn how to fly and set off to Neverland, where they will encounter various adventures with the lost boys who so desperately need a mother and the wicked Captain Hook.
Much of the humour and sadness in Barrie’s novel arises from the differences between society’s idea of a child and an actual child. So in a certain way, the book is deeply rooted in the adult idealizations of childhood –a thought that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, when many nations first instituted compulsory elementary education.
The book was written in the first person omniscient point of view and past tense.
One of the centre symbols in this children's book is the kiss. However, the narrator tells us that Peter Pan is highly hateful and wild toward adults. He does like Mrs Darling's kiss. The "kiss" at the corner of Mr Darling's mouth is, although hits are nothing visible, a charm and an inaccessible depth. The kiss does, like Peter, represent youth: the detachment of growing up. Although Mrs Darling's kiss remained of total freedom yet, it brings safety. It is like something mysterious or rather a magical shield.
Another symbol is the ticking crocodile which represents time itself. It mainly shows the movement of time from beginning to end as if the time runs out. The crocodile remains throughout the novel invent yet vicious since it is only following its instinct. Captain James Hook is extremely afraid of the crocodile siren. It already ate his hand, but it can also be interpreted that he is like almost all citizens of Neverland, fearful of growing up/dying.
Nonetheless, the book does some flaws. Although it was customary at the time, how Barrie described the indigenous people of Neverland is highly offensive, and he does use slurs for them and describes them as "wild". I also think that some scenes are a bit too graphic for a children's book since they have deaths and even murder scenes.
Overall, I enjoyed reading "Peter Pan", and since it was one of my favourite Disney movies, I was very invested in the story. I like it more than the Disney adaptation itself, and I can recommend it to anyone who wants to read an adventurous children's novel.
The story begins in the nursery of the home of the Darlings, where Mrs Darling put her children to bed. She does seem supposed that all three children are thinking of a mysterious boy named Peter Pan. When Mrs Darling asks about him, her daughter Wendy explains that Peter does visit them when they are all fast asleep. One night when Mrs Darling is in the nursery, Peter Pan comes to visit. As he noticed the adult in the room, he jumps out of the window, but his shadow is trapped by the children's canine nanny Nana.
A few days later, Peter Pan revisit the Darling children. Since Nana is in the garden, Mr and Mrs Darling have left for a party and left the children unguarded. Wendy helps Peter secure his shadow back to himself, and he confesses that he has been listening to their bedtime stories to tell the lost boys them too. When he asks Wendy to visit them on Neverland, she hesitates but agrees. She and her brothers Jon and Micheal learn how to fly and set off to Neverland, where they will encounter various adventures with the lost boys who so desperately need a mother and the wicked Captain Hook.
Much of the humour and sadness in Barrie’s novel arises from the differences between society’s idea of a child and an actual child. So in a certain way, the book is deeply rooted in the adult idealizations of childhood –a thought that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, when many nations first instituted compulsory elementary education.
The book was written in the first person omniscient point of view and past tense.
One of the centre symbols in this children's book is the kiss. However, the narrator tells us that Peter Pan is highly hateful and wild toward adults. He does like Mrs Darling's kiss. The "kiss" at the corner of Mr Darling's mouth is, although hits are nothing visible, a charm and an inaccessible depth. The kiss does, like Peter, represent youth: the detachment of growing up. Although Mrs Darling's kiss remained of total freedom yet, it brings safety. It is like something mysterious or rather a magical shield.
Another symbol is the ticking crocodile which represents time itself. It mainly shows the movement of time from beginning to end as if the time runs out. The crocodile remains throughout the novel invent yet vicious since it is only following its instinct. Captain James Hook is extremely afraid of the crocodile siren. It already ate his hand, but it can also be interpreted that he is like almost all citizens of Neverland, fearful of growing up/dying.
Nonetheless, the book does some flaws. Although it was customary at the time, how Barrie described the indigenous people of Neverland is highly offensive, and he does use slurs for them and describes them as "wild". I also think that some scenes are a bit too graphic for a children's book since they have deaths and even murder scenes.
Overall, I enjoyed reading "Peter Pan", and since it was one of my favourite Disney movies, I was very invested in the story. I like it more than the Disney adaptation itself, and I can recommend it to anyone who wants to read an adventurous children's novel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Misogyny, Kidnapping, and Violence
Moderate: Death, Racism, and Racial slurs
thebooksandpages's review
adventurous
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, and Violence
Moderate: Kidnapping and Trafficking
Minor: Child abuse and Gaslighting
booksthatburn's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
PETER PAN is a witty and fantastic story with great observations about childhood, sexism, and the desire not to grow up but the inevitability of doing so. It's also deeply racist. I read it so you don't have to.
I enjoyed the feeling that there's no inherent division between magical and mundane, that Mrs. Darling walks in her children's thoughts and they were dreaming of Neverland long before ever setting foot on its shores. The way Nana is a nurse (nanny) and a dog, wholly both and frequently subject to the stigma of being a dog. She has days off, dresses the children, and has the respect of her employers, but also gets put in the kennel when Mr. Darling gets upset at her. There's a lot of witty observations about the societal place of women and girls, about the essence of children as joyful but heartless (what I would describe as not yet having a fully developed pre-frontal cortex, i.e. literally not yet able to fully consider consequences and to think of other people as having inner lives or experiencing hurt in the way one knows oneself can).
It has racism so baked into it that even if there were no other issues I could not recommend reading it. There's the explicit assumption that everyone other than the tribe members are British and therefore white, which is unlikely (especially for pirates). The book freely uses "white" to describe anyone not in the tribe generally, and the pirates in particular. The portrayal of Tiger Lily and her tribe was a checklist of racist stereotypes about North American Indigenous people. The most obvious issue is the constant use of a racial slur used to refer to them as a group, but that's not the only thing. The book's gaze clusters the tribe with animals, and refers to them with language that feels designed to treat them as inhuman. There's also the problem that putting Indigenous people on a magical island which has fairies and mermaids it treats the tribe as being equally fictional and fantastical as either of those non-existent creatures, which does harm to living Indigenous people then and now. Tiger Lily's most relevant contribution to the plot is to do something heroic off-page and then need to be rescued from death. On its own that feels related to the sexism which affects characters like Wendy and Mrs. Darling, but I don't think it can be separated from the racist portrayal of her tribe, since it doesn't deem her exploits worthy of being shown at all. At least when Wendy stands aside while the boys and men fight she gets a bunch of description of what she contributes before and after. Tiger Lily just gets rescued and then basically vanishes from the story. While I'm on the subject of sexism, for every really great insight about how sexism affects women and girls in the contemporary society, the narrator says something that just feels sexist and off. Like it does a great job of showing what is going on, but only realizes that half of the problems it portrays are problems at all. And that's before we get to the idea that Hook only has intuition because he has a feminine side, that Smee is portrayed as strange or weak for having a sewing machine, or the way that fatphobia is essential but unexamined in a pivotal plot event.
I'm glad to have read it because I've read so many other version of this story, but I doubt I'll ever read it again and I don't recommend that anyone else try. If you're interested in the story but are hoping for less racism then I recommend perusing my list of retellings I've read, for PETER PAN and otherwise.
I enjoyed the feeling that there's no inherent division between magical and mundane, that Mrs. Darling walks in her children's thoughts and they were dreaming of Neverland long before ever setting foot on its shores. The way Nana is a nurse (nanny) and a dog, wholly both and frequently subject to the stigma of being a dog. She has days off, dresses the children, and has the respect of her employers, but also gets put in the kennel when Mr. Darling gets upset at her. There's a lot of witty observations about the societal place of women and girls, about the essence of children as joyful but heartless (what I would describe as not yet having a fully developed pre-frontal cortex, i.e. literally not yet able to fully consider consequences and to think of other people as having inner lives or experiencing hurt in the way one knows oneself can).
It has racism so baked into it that even if there were no other issues I could not recommend reading it. There's the explicit assumption that everyone other than the tribe members are British and therefore white, which is unlikely (especially for pirates). The book freely uses "white" to describe anyone not in the tribe generally, and the pirates in particular. The portrayal of Tiger Lily and her tribe was a checklist of racist stereotypes about North American Indigenous people. The most obvious issue is the constant use of a racial slur used to refer to them as a group, but that's not the only thing. The book's gaze clusters the tribe with animals, and refers to them with language that feels designed to treat them as inhuman. There's also the problem that putting Indigenous people on a magical island which has fairies and mermaids it treats the tribe as being equally fictional and fantastical as either of those non-existent creatures, which does harm to living Indigenous people then and now. Tiger Lily's most relevant contribution to the plot is to do something heroic off-page and then need to be rescued from death. On its own that feels related to the sexism which affects characters like Wendy and Mrs. Darling, but I don't think it can be separated from the racist portrayal of her tribe, since it doesn't deem her exploits worthy of being shown at all. At least when Wendy stands aside while the boys and men fight she gets a bunch of description of what she contributes before and after. Tiger Lily just gets rescued and then basically vanishes from the story. While I'm on the subject of sexism, for every really great insight about how sexism affects women and girls in the contemporary society, the narrator says something that just feels sexist and off. Like it does a great job of showing what is going on, but only realizes that half of the problems it portrays are problems at all. And that's before we get to the idea that Hook only has intuition because he has a feminine side, that Smee is portrayed as strange or weak for having a sewing machine, or the way that fatphobia is essential but unexamined in a pivotal plot event.
I'm glad to have read it because I've read so many other version of this story, but I doubt I'll ever read it again and I don't recommend that anyone else try. If you're interested in the story but are hoping for less racism then I recommend perusing my list of retellings I've read, for PETER PAN and otherwise.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs
Moderate: Grief, Sexism, Fatphobia, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Violence, Murder, Death, and Racism
Minor: Death of parent and Animal death
meagangrace's review
adventurous
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Racism, Violence, and Kidnapping
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