Rating: 3/5
This book was the follow-up to the famous children’s book Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie. It gave an account of what happened after Wendy and the Lost Boys grew up, when they had to go back to Neverland for more adventures. They find astonishing answers to the many questions they wanted to ask: “What happened to Hook? Did he really die inside the crocodile? What happens if you grow up in Neverland? CAN you grow up in Neverland?”
To go back, Wendy and the Lost Boys had to return to being children. How did they do that? Well, they had to borrow their own children’s clothes, of course. But what about Tootles, a judge, a man, who only had a little girl? And what about Nibs, who – sadly – did not have any children?
At some points in this tale, McCaughrean wrote very well, and I was surprised why she didn’t use that way of writing in her other, more modern, books. At other times, she tended to drone on a little bit like Barrie sometimes did, saying perhaps something like, “And in the ship’s chest they found onions and cookies and berries and nuts and naan breads and pasta and mutton and silk and more onions and…” and would go on for an extremely long time. But sometimes she would say something funny that would make the reader laugh, and at others something so boring it would make the reader become drowsy as they read it.