In August 2004 the Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who hold the copyright in Peter Pan, launched a worldwide search for a writer to create a sequel to J. M. Barrie's timeless masterpiece. Renowned and multi award-winning English author Geraldine McCaughrean won the honor to write this official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Illustrated by Scott M. Fischer and set in the 1930s, Peter Pan in Scarlet takes readers flying back to Neverland in an adventure filled with tension, danger, and swashbuckling derring-do!
In August 2004 the Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who hold the copyright in Peter Pan, launched a worldwide search for a writer to create a sequel to J. M. Barrie's timeless masterpiece. Renowned and multi award-winning English author Geraldine McCaughrean won the honor to write this official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Illustrated by Scott M. Fischer and set in the 1930s, Peter Pan in Scarlet takes readers flying back to Neverland in an adventure filled with tension, danger, and swashbuckling derring-do!
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Peter Pan in Scarlet
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Peter Pan in Scarlet
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Overview
In August 2004 the Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who hold the copyright in Peter Pan, launched a worldwide search for a writer to create a sequel to J. M. Barrie's timeless masterpiece. Renowned and multi award-winning English author Geraldine McCaughrean won the honor to write this official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Illustrated by Scott M. Fischer and set in the 1930s, Peter Pan in Scarlet takes readers flying back to Neverland in an adventure filled with tension, danger, and swashbuckling derring-do!
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781416918080 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Margaret K. McElderry Books |
Publication date: | 10/05/2006 |
Pages: | 320 |
Sales rank: | 566,755 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d) |
Lexile: | 830L (what's this?) |
Age Range: | 9 - 14 Years |
About the Author
Scott M. Fischer is a painter by birth, a musician by training, and a storyteller by choice. Best known as the author/illustrator of JUMP!, he is also the illustrator of Twinkle, the New York Times bestselling Peter Pan in Scarlet, Lottie Paris Lives Here, and Lottie Paris and the Best Place. Scott lives with his wife, daughter, and a menagerie of animals in Belchertown, Massachusetts.
Read an Excerpt
Peter Pan in Scarlet
By Geraldine McCaughrean
Margaret K. McElderry
Copyright © 2006 Special Trustees of Great Ormond StreetAll right reserved.
ISBN: 1-4169-1808-6
Chapter One
The Old Boys
"I'm not going to bed," said John - which startled his wife. Children are never ready for bed, but grown-ups like John are usually hankering for their pillows and eiderdowns from the moment they finish dinner. "I'm not going to bed!" said John again, and so ferociously that his wife knew he was very frightened indeed.
"You have been dreaming again, haven't you?" she said tenderly. "Such a trial."
John scrubbed at his eyes with his knuckles. "I told you. I never dream! What does a man have to do to be believed in his own house?"
His wife stroked his shiny head and went to turn down the bedclothes. And there on John's side of the bed, something bulged up through the coverlet. It wasn't a hot-water bottle or a teddy bear or a library book. Mrs. John folded down the sheets. It was a cutlass.
With a sigh, she hung it on the hook behind the bedroom door, alongside the quiver of arrows and John's dressing gown. Both she and her husband liked to pretend it was not happening (because that's what grown-ups do when they are in trouble), but secretly they both knew: John was dreaming of Neverland again. After every dream, something was left behind in his bed next morning, like the stones around a dish after a serving of prunes. A sword here, a candle there, a bow, a medicine bottle, a top hat ... The nightafter he dreamed of mermaids, a fishy smell hung about the stairs all day. The wardrobe was piled high with the dregs of dreams - an alarm clock, an Indian head-dress, an eye-patch, a pirate's tricorn hat. (The worst nights were when John dreamed of Captain Hook.)
Mrs. John plumped up the pillows with a brisk blow of her hand - and a gunshot rang out through the whole house, waking the neighbours and terrifying the dog. The bullet shied about the room, bouncing off the lamp-stand and smashing a vase. Cautiously, with two fingers, Mrs. John drew the pistol from under the pillow and dropped it into the bin, like a kipper found to be not quite fresh.
"They are so real!" whimpered her husband from the doorway. "These wretched dreams are just so real!"
All over London and even as far afield as Fotheringdene and Grimswater, old boys were dreaming the same kind of dreams. Not young, silly boys but boys grown-up: cheerful, stolid boys who worked in banks or drove trains or grew strawberries or wrote plays or stood for Parliament. Cozy at home, surrounded by family and friends, they thought themselves comfortable and safe ... until the dreams began. Now each night they dreamed of Neverland and woke to find leftovers in their beds - daggers or coils of rope, a pile of leaves or a hook.
And what did they have in common, these dreamers? Just one thing. They had all once been Boys in Neverland.
"I have called you all together, because something must be done!" said Judge Tootles, twirling his big moustache. "It is not good enough! Gone on far too long! Won't do! Enough is enough! We must act!"
They were eating brown soup in the library of the Gentlemen's Club off Piccadilly - a brown room with brown portraits of gentlemen wearing brown suits. Smoke from the fireplace hung in the air like a brown fog. On the dining table lay an assortment of weapons, the sole of a shoe, a cap, a pair of giant bird's eggs.
The Honourable Slightly fingered them thoughtfully: "The flotsam of Night washed up on the shores of Morning!" he said (but then the Honourable Slightly played the clarinet in a nightclub and was inclined to write poetry).
"Call Mrs. Wendy! Mrs. Wendy would know what to do!" said Judge Tootles. But of course Wendy had not been invited, because ladies are not allowed in the Gentlemen's Club.
"I say we should let sleeping dogs lie," said Mr. Nibs, but nobody thanked him, because dogs are not allowed in the Gentlemen's Club either.
"Mind over matter!" exclaimed Mr. John. "We must just try harder not to dream!"
"We tried that," said the Twins mournfully. "Stayed awake all night for a week."
"And what happened?" asked Mr. John, intrigued.
"We fell asleep on the London omnibus on the way to work, and dreamed all the way to Putney. When we got off, we were both wearing warpaint."
"How perfectly charming," said the Honourable Slightly.
"Last night we dreamed of the Lagoon," added Second Twin.
There was a murmur of heartfelt sighs. Each of the Old Boys had dreamed lately of the Lagoon and woken with wet hair, and dazzle in his eyes.
"Is there a cure, Curly?" enquired Mr. Nibs, but Dr. Curly knew of no cure for an outbreak of unwanted dreams.
"We should write a letter of complaint!" boomed Judge Tootles. But nobody knew of a Ministry for Dreams or whether there was a Minister of State for Nightmares.
In the end, with nothing solved and no plan of campaign, the Old Boys sank into silence and fell asleep in their armchairs, their brown coffee cups dropping brown drips onto the brown carpet. And they all dreamed the same dream.
They dreamed they were playing tag with the mermaids, while the reflections of rainbows twisted around and between them like water snakes. Then, from somewhere deeper down and darker, came a hugely slithering shape that brushed the soles of their feet with its knobbly, scaly hide....
When they woke, the Old Boys' clothes were sopping wet, and there on its back, in the middle of the Gentlemen's Library, was a prodigious crocodile, lashing its tail and snapping its jaws in an effort to turn over and make supper of them.
The Gentlemen's Club emptied in the record time of forty-three seconds, and next day Members everywhere received a letter from the management.
The Gentlemen's Club Brown Street, off Piccadilly, London W1
23rd April 1926 We regret to inform you that the Club will be closed for redecoration from 23rd April until approximately 1999. Your obedient servants, The Management
In the end, of course, it was Mrs. Wendy who explained it. "Dreams are leaking out of Neverland," she said. "Something must be wrong. If we want the dreams to stop, we must find out what."
Mrs. Wendy was a grown woman, and as sensible as can be. She had a tidy mind. For six days in any week she strongly disapproved of dreams littering up the house. But on the seventh, she was not quite so sure. Recently she had begun hurrying to bed, eager for that twilight flicker that comes between waking and sleep. From behind closed eyelids she would watch for a dream to come floating towards her - just as once she had watched at her bedroom window, hoping against hope for a small figure to come swooping through the local stars. Each bedtime her heart beat faster at the thought of glimpsing the Lagoon again, or hearing the cry of the Neverbird. Above all, she longed to see Peter again: the friend she had left behind in Neverland all those years before.
Now Neverland was rubbing against the Here and Now, wearing holes in the fabric in between. Tendrils of dream were starting to poke through. All was not well. Somehow Mrs. Wendy knew it.
"Perhaps the dreams are messages," said one Twin.
"Perhaps they are warnings," said the other.
"Perhaps they are symptoms," said Dr. Curly, putting his stethoscope to his own forehead and listening for the dreams inside.
"I'm awfully afraid they may be," said Wendy. "Something is wrong in Neverland, gentlemen ... and that is why we must go back."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean Copyright © 2006 by Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Interviews
A Conversation with Geraldine McCaughrean
How were you selected to write the first-ever authorized sequel to Peter Pan?
GM: Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital announced a worldwide competition to find the lucky author. Entrants had to be published authors, put forward by a literary agent or a publisher, and had to submit both a synopsis and a trial chapter. I only went into it for fun, never dreaming I would actually get the job.
What was your inspiration for the story of Peter Pan in Scarlet?
GM: I badly wanted to be true to Barrie's original book. Not to the cartoon version or the pantomime or the last movie, but to the 1911 book. So I read and reread Peter Pan and Wendy, and tried to soak up something of Barrie's style and sense of humor and quirky style. I also wanted to create something distinctly my own. So what I went for was a literary counterpart -- the matching bookend -- same world, but somewhat altered. You see, I don't really share Barrie's gloomy take on life: That we are born happy and dwindle down to unhappiness as we get older, and that life is perfect at three, but sadder with each passing year. Nor do I think grown-ups are an altogether bad thing.
Did you face any challenges while writing the sequel to Barrie's story?
GM: I faced certain snags when I started work. The Darling children and the Lost Boys came back to London at the end of Peter Pan and Wendy. Only Peter stayed in Neverland. So they went on growing up, whereas Peter did not. Twenty years have passed. So they have to find a way of recovering their childhood before they can go back to Neverland, because, of course, only children can go there. Worse still, the arch villain Hook was last seen disappearing into the gullet of a crocodile, and I don't do ghosts. I've never done ghosts. I don't approve of ghosts. And how long do fairies live? I don't know, do you? I have always thought of them as ephemera, like mayflies. But once I got over those first stumbling blocks, I was as happy as a pig in mud.
How did you begin your career as a children's book author?
GM: Writing was always my hobby. My brother Neil got published when he was only fourteen, but then he was very clever and I wasn't. I just wrote for the fun -- the only proper reason in my opinion -- and I read out my stories to friends at school and very occasionally submitted a manuscript and waited for it to come thumping back in the mail. My school teacher, who remained a friend after I left school, introduced me to a publisher of children's books -- as a babysitter. I used to show him my work and try to learn from what he said about it. At last he let me "audition" for a book he was planning -- a retelling of The Arabian Nights. My two trial chapters won me the job, and at last I was a published author. Nothing could stop me after that!
Who are some of your favorite children's book authors today?
GM: Bruce Coville, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Jan Mark, David Almond, Louis Sachar...oh, there are so many. Authors do so many different things with their books -- offer such different things to their readers -- that I could never possibly choose just one.
Were you a fan of Peter Pan growing up?
GM: There are no horses in it, and horses were my one big passion as a child. So no, it wasn't my absolutely favorite book. But I can't remember a time when I did not know the story, and I vividly recall how the book looked on the bedroom bookshelf and all the color plates inside. It was the first play that I ever went to see, as well, and I got so swallowed up by the action that I was very very angry when Peter asked the audience to clap and save Tinker Bell. It meant I had to stop being IN the story, break off and become me again, sitting in a theatre seat.
Is it true that your daughter helps with your writing process and will be a part of your international book tour for Peter Pan in Scarlet?
GM: Ailsa, who is now sixteen, is a brilliant writer herself -- much more naturally talented than I was at her age (I sort of learned how to get better as I went along). She is very helpful in all kinds of ways. She can tell me if I have used a word too often, or too many adjectives, or spent too long in one place. But she can also look at the whole book and tell me if it is good and how it makes her feel and how I could improve it. I couldn't do without her. I couldn't do without her company on the book tours, either. She makes me laugh, and I think I might need a few laughs to keep me rolling along.
Do you hope children AND adults will read Peter Pan in Scarlet?
GM: I certainly do. I firmly believe that J. M. Barrie expected his book to be read to children by their parents and that is why he included so many 'asides' -- adult jokes and observations that no child would appreciate. Because I wanted to create a book like his, I too have included jokes and observations that will float unnoticed over a young reader's head but maybe bring a smile to the face of the parent reading to them.
You did some research on J. M. Barrie; what type of a person was he?
GM: I did enough to know that there was a lot of unhappiness in his life. But I don't know quite how useful it is to know that. Authors have lots of reasons for doing what they do. Quite often they want to get away from the here-and-now -- to escape to somewhere they like better in their imagination. I know I do. Barrie had LOTS of reasons for wanting to escape reality and fly off to the imaginary world he had created in Neverland. Maybe that's why he wrote. Then again, he was also the most successful writer and playwright of his age -- the richest author in England. So I guess he also had quite a professional attitude to his writing. He was not just some amateur, sucking on his pencil and letting his fantasies run away with him.
If you could have a conversation with J. M. Barrie today, what would you like to say to him?
GM: "My word, you're looking well for your age!" Seriously? I suppose I might ask if he minded me joining in his game -- and show him I had nothing wicked up my sleeve (like a hook).
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