Monday, March 7, 2011

Building on a Classic

Like most kids, mine enjoy a good pirate story. We've read How I Became a Pirate, Uncle Pirate, The Time Pirates, and of course Peter Pan. So when I showed my kids the cover of Peter and the Starcatchers, they were more than willing to have me read it to them.

Now I happen to love a good retelling of a fairy tale. (Check out this review of three versions of my favorite fairy tale, East of the Sun, West of the Moon). But the writing duo of Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson do more than just retell the tale of Peter Pan. They turn it on it's head and create their own mythology. Filled with adventure, magic and, of course, pirates, this story also has a huge dose of humor (always a plus with middle grade). We see how Peter and the Lost Boys first cross paths with Hook (who has a different name since he doesn't have his hook yet) and Smee. We also learn how Tinkerbell and the mermaids of the lagoon come into existence.

This book makes a great read-aloud (perfect for National Read Aloud Day on Wednesday), but it's easy enough for good readers to tackle on their own. Now that there are four books in the series, this is an excellent choice for kids who like to follow a group of characters on numerous adventures.

Looking for more Marvelous Middle Grade book reviews? Check out these bloggers:
Shannon O'Donnell
Ben Langhinrichs
Myrna Foster
Brooke Favero
Joanne Fritz

10 comments:

Laura Pauling said...

Both my daughter and I enjoyed this book. Great writing. Unique. And that's hard to do with something like Peter Pan!

Ben Langhinrichs said...

Sounds great. I'll have to get a copy. Thanks for sharing this.

S.A. Larsenッ said...

Sounds really interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Stina said...

I'm going to see if the library has this one. It sounds great (for the kids. I'm assuming there's no steamy make out scenes in it). :D

Bish Denham said...

Okay, I guess I'm going to have to try to find this one.

bfav said...

oooh. This book is on my to reads for 2011. Great review. I'm excited.

Kelly Polark said...

Looks like a good one!
I didn't know Wed was National REad Aloud Day. I do that most days, but I'm going to try and find something to read to all three of my kids at once...

Krispy said...

Thanks for the review! My friend bought my sister this book for Christmas because she heard good things about it (and my sister is a picky reader). I was curious about it to begin with, but now I'll have to steal it away from the sister to read it. :)

Myrna Foster said...

We own all of the books in this series. They're fantastic, though the bad guys get kind of creepy after the first one. Thanks for the review and the link!

TerryLynnJohnson said...

I love following this middle grade reviews! Thanks for telling me about this book. I've read ICE by Sarah Beth Durst (speaking of retelling fairy tale) and thought it was so beautiful!

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