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All is not well in Neverland, but banish all thoughts of Michael Jackson. I mean the real Neverland, not Jackson's estate in California. But the one you fly to: "Second to the right and straight on till morning."
J.M. Barrie's timeless story about Peter Pan, the boy who won't grow up, began as a play in 1904, was turned into a novel in 1911 and has spawned a cottage industry of adaptations, musicals, sequels and prequels.
Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean, published today, is the first authorized sequel.
It was commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH to some), the London children's hospital to which the childless Barrie left the rights to Peter Pan.
"Authorized sequel" suggests reverent recycling that's more derivative than creative. That's not the case here. McCaughrean, who has won three Whitbread Awards, the British version of the American Library Association's Newbery, is a lovely writer with an imagination at home in Neverland.
Her tone is closer to Barrie's original, which is darker than the Disney and Sony versions or the best-selling series of prequels by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.
McCaughrean's Peter, who has never learned to read or write and wears Captain Hook's old red frock, can be a pompous brat.
Wendy is sensible and independent and worries that "without the right upbringing, girls can be so very ... domestic."
And the handicapped Hook -- yes, he's back -- is a complex villain, tortured by memories of school days at Eton.
It's set in 1926. Wendy and the Lost Boys, adopted by the Darlings, are grown, with children of their own. But they're haunted by "an outbreak of unwanted dreams. ... Neverland was rubbing against the Here and Now, wearing holes in the fabric in between."
Dressed in their children's clothing, the downsized Darlings return to Neverland for a series of cliff-hanging adventures. It's mostly adventure for the sake of adventure, but the vivid writing carries the story.
In McCaughrean's world, rain comes down "in exclamation marks." Fires are lit by nothing but imagination. And in drowned villages, "church bells rang when the sea was rough."
The publisher says it's for readers of all ages, but most elementary-school students will need help, what with references to Ovid, Etruscans and "the Big War." (Michael Darling, "their wonderful brother," was among the British casualties of World War I.)
The landscape is no Candyland. Obstacles include the Grief Reef and the Maze of Regrets.
Nor is it politically correct. There are Redskins and a warning: "Even with parents in charge, babies go missing -- fall out of prams, run away with the bath water, or get put out instead of the cat. Mistakes happen in the best regulated households."
But in the end, love and mothers triumph. As McCaughrean writes, "It was Pretend, of course, but so exciting!"
Peter Pan in Scarlet
By Geraldine McCaughrean
McElderry, 310 pp., $17.99
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