Book 13 of 2014 -- Peter Pan

During the summer the oldest girls and I have established a pattern.  Each night before bed I read them a chapter of a book.  This summer we started with The Hobbit which conveniently we finished just before going away on holidays (and the girls enjoyed it far more than they thought they would).  At that point they started asking what I would read when we got home.

I knew it needed to be something I could get finished by the end of August because we have learned that once school starts there is too much happening to have these reading sessions.  So I started checking what I had available.  As it happens I had picked up a free e-book copy of Peter Pan a couple of years ago to have something the girls could read on the Kobo should they want to.  I counted chapters and days and realized this would fit into the available time.  Accordingly in the middle of August we began to read it and finished it on Sunday night.

Strange as it may seem I had never read the full book of Peter Pan before.  I had seen the Disney movie of course.  I had listened to a record telling of the story based on the Disney movie (complete with songs of course) when I was young.  I had read an abridged version for early readers.  And I have seen 2 different stage versions.  But I had never read the full novel.  Until last month.

The story of course is known.  The story is pretty much the same in all versions.  Even Disney stayed pretty close to this one.

But I was not ready for the implicit violence and the acceptance of same than Barrie includes in his text.  Bloodletting happens with little or no concern or anguish.

Nor was I ready for the explicit racial stereotyping.  Maybe that is a sign of how long it has been since I read/watched the story (because now that I think of it the Disney movie included some pretty racist stereotypes in it too -- like the song "What Makes the Red Man Red") but the treatment of the "redskins" in the novel is terrible.  I know it is a product of an era that is long past but still it did come to the point where I had to talk about stereotypes to the girls as we were reading.

Peter Pan is an interesting story.  Pure escapism on the surface.  And yet I wonder if there is something more there that could be explored.  What does it mean to grow up?  What does it meant to live in "Neverland"?   ANd why do we forget?