Wendy

Short of the fact that this isn't the sort of fairytale story that most authors write for children, it is still a very enjoyable read. Karen Wallace does an excellent job in creating a very different mood for the Darling Children. She conveys a family life, which though contradictory to the original Peter Pan which describes a happy home, is quite possibly more accurate given the time and the circumstances of the Darling children. As soon as you open the book and begin to read you find yourself captivated by Ms. Wallace's beautiful and fluid writing style. Wendy Darling's search for truth in her famiy becomes the reader's search. Because of the subjects that this book covers, I think it a very appropriate book for young readers who find themselves in similar situations as the Darling children, and especially Wendy who whitnesses the events personally and battles herself inward. It will help those in the same situations cope better with the reality of their own inner struggles. Overall, this book is really just a fantastic little treasure. I encourage anyone to read it, young and young at heart alike.

I began the book expecting Peter Pan to make an appearance in the book somehow, perhaps in the playacting of the Darling children. Halfway through the book I forgot about him completely. By the end of the book, I was creating parallels between the characters in "Wendy" and the characters in "Peter Pan", this book is really a story about a family struggling to love each other and forgive each other's weaknesses. It's a story that young adults can relate to more than young children (even though it is a very easy read). The relationships are complex and require some amount of experience to understand. The breakdown of the Darling's marriage is something most pre-teens and teens can relate to their own lives. The fighting, blaming, and long silences in the Darling house are only too evocative of a family going through divorce. Mr. Darling lashes out at his children as well as his wife when his world begins to crumble through his own immaturity and selfish decision-making. The true 'villain' in the novel is Nanny Holburn, who openly despises the children and forces them to undergo cruel punishments 'for their own good'. And yet, the children, while living in fear, do not feel that they can approach their parents about the problem. The rest of the house staff are very kind to the children, but their parents remain distant. The most obvious parallel in this story is Thomas, Wendy's best friend who lives on her uncle's estate in the country. Thomas is not very clearly explained, but he (though 15) will always be childlike in his heart. Thomas would be Peter Pan, in his permanent childhood, except instead of leading Wendy to another land, she leads him to a more soothing state of mind. However, she does find sanctuary with Thomas, so it is not a bad parallel. I respect the author for not trying to create characters that have a distinct resemblance to the cast of characters from Peter Pan. It leaves you wondering - and makes the story more real. The story does explain why, when given the opportunity, Wendy and the boys would fly out their nursery window after a boy who promises 'Neverland'. They have little reason to trust the adults in their life, and a poor example of what adult life is like. The ending is relatively happy, however, and the Darlings seem to be on a path to resolving their domestic problems. Perhaps Wendy would not fly out the window at the end of the story, but would stay to see how things turn out.

Violent and depressing. No way I’d recommend to children

I suppose this was meant to be a contribution to the current wave of "dark side of Peter Pan" fanfics, similar to "Lost Girls". It's fairly well written, has good period settings and vocabulary, and moves along nicely. However, Wallace has chosen to make the Darlings a dysfunctional family; she's exaggerated certain of the parents' character traits far beyond what Barrie intended. She also postulates a variety of precedental incidents which are, I suppose, meant to explain Wendy's later readiness to fly away with Peter Pan; a cruel nanny, a criminally irresponsible father, a suggestion of insanity in the family. In other words, it's the old escapism chestnut; a desire to journey into magical worlds can't possibly just be a wish to see new things or to have adventures, it has to be because there is some condition in your everyday life that is hurting you intolerably. A major theme in Barrie's Peter Pan is that children can have perfectly happy home lives and still wish to fly away, just to see what's out there, confident in the belief that they can always come home, that Mother will leave a window open. Wallace completely ignores this concept. It would have been better had the author used original characters. The family itself is realistic enough; some parents do (and did at that time) drink a lot, have affairs, spend money irresponsibly, look the other way when their children are being abused. Child abuse and neglect were as common in that period as they are today, particularly emotional neglect in the upper classes. Children need to read about other children who have been brutalised in various ways; it tells them they're not alone. But this is not Barrie's family. Sure, the 'real' Mr. and Mrs. Darling were a bit childish, but they were never cruel. One of the most common problems with fan fiction is character consistency. Wallace has an interesting story, but she seems to have forgotten that in writing about established characters, it works best if you have them behave at least reasonably close to source. Pick up Barrie's "Peter Pan" after reading this, and try to connect the Darlings as he wrote them with the family Wallace portrays. Wallace tells a fairly good story of abuse, betrayal, courage and emotional survival; she should have done so without misusing one of the most beloved families in cihldren's literature.

I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the enchantment of it, but I think the author could have done so much more with it. Most of the time it just seemed like a completely different novel whose charachters happened to have the same name as the Darlings. It dragged at times, but overall it was an OK book.

Beautiful adaptation of peter pan, a story that leaves you thinking.