Peter Pan

The pitch

The boy who wouldn’t grow up teaches three London children to fly and leads them to an island of pirates, mermaids, and a crocodile with a clock inside. Everyone knows the story; almost nobody knows the book — which is wittier, darker, and far more moving than any version Hollywood has made of it.

What to know

Barrie narrates in his own voice, sly and teasing on one page and suddenly tender on the next, and that voice is the main reason to read the book instead of watching another version of it. It makes a wonderful read-aloud. The prose is more old-fashioned than Oz, so independent readers do best from about grade 4. And read the content note: the portrayal of the “redskins” is genuinely dated, and worth the same short conversation you’d have about Huck Finn.

Life when written

Barrie’s London was Edwardian: prosperous families kept a nursery at the top of the house, children were raised largely by nannies, and an afternoon walk in Kensington Gardens could be a child’s whole geography. The story began as games Barrie played in those gardens with the five Llewelyn Davies brothers, whose guardian he eventually became. It was a world of starched collars and firm bedtimes — precisely what the window in the Darlings’ nursery opens out of.