Peter Pan
 J. M. Barrie, Illust by Raquel Jaramillo
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2001 Simon & Schuster
  ISBN: 0743214498
 

For those who have never read J. M. Barrie's long, quirky & involved story of a boy who can fly, loses his shadow & talks with fairies & the girl who befriends him & learns to fly.

“Second to the right & then straight on until morning” -- how many nights did I slip into sleep, murmuring that phrase & dreaming I was on my way to Neverland where the Lost Boys made their homes(after all, girls were much too clever ever to fall out of their prams & get lost!)

It's all there & I was surprised at how long is Peter Pan. It could take a month of reading to your children to finish it. “Cowardly custard!” Shades of the taunts between us children! What a time of innocence!

Coming up in London, not a decade after J. M. Barrie's death in 1937, the story of Peter Pan had already become part of the consciousness of an entire nation. The mother of my childhood loved it all, remembered it from when she was a girl. There is a statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens on the shore of The Serpentine pond to which we would briskly walk on winter Sundays & our dad would point out all the little creatures in the bronze niches & quote from the book -- I think he knew it by heart. Each Christmas Holidays when we were back from boarding schools, we'd religious go to the theater to see the inevitable, annual production of Barrie's play -- which was written before the book. We'd shriek, kick our feet & gasp as Peter flew & clap as Tink faded!

This complete & unabridged original tale of Neverland(no, it wasn't ever Never Never Land!) is rich in Victorian/Edwardian England's sense of humor & propriety; of starched strangers getting to know each other across social barriers; of precious parents torn with guilt & passionate dogs bereft of duty. Of cocky young boys & mean-spirited pirates; of exotic redskins & luring mermaids. Certainly not for the politically correct!

It is also rich in an entirely new way for Raquel Jaramillo has set Barrie's story to photographs in an immediate, fantastically textured, dreamy & magical way. This illustrator has refreshed the images to this oft-abbreviated tale & revived its delightful & scary philosophies.

The battle of the sexes lives again! Peter is as arrogantly boyish as I remember from my childhood where the only version was this long one. Wendy is as coquettish & girlish & Tinker Bell just as sullen!

Nonetheless -- it's all there -- Mr. & Mrs. Darling being darling; Wendy & Peter arguing & the thrill of learning to fly!

The tale of a boy who will never grow up so infused Western children's psyches that it lent itself, in the 1970s when some of those Lost Boys really did grow up, to a rather telling book -- Dan Kiley's Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up.

Psychology & political correctness aside, Raquel Jaramillo has done well in refurbishing this master storyteller's greatest tale. Adults & children alike will be able to identify with the whole cast & once again become immersed in the magic.

Another thing Peter Pan said that has stayed with me all my life is: “To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

Peter Pan: The original tale of Neverland, complete and unabridged with illustrations by Raquel Jaramillo is grand stuff & destined to become a family treasure!

James M. Barrie was born in Scotland in 1860 & moved south to London when he was 25 where he began writing plays & novels. He told his first Peter Pan stories to the sons of a friend & by 1904 Peter Pan made its stage debut & was a huge success. It has been performed continually ever since. It was in 1911 that the play became the novel which was originally titled Peter and Wendy. This is also the first time the name Wendy ever appeared.

Raquel Jaramillo is the creative director of a major book publisher in New York City. She is also an award-winning book-jacket designer & art director.

Other classics illustrated by Raquel Jaramillo: The Night Before Christmas; Dream, Baby, Dream & Ride, Baby, Ride!(Look Baby Books Series).
(12/02/01)

Rebecca