Sisters of the Neversea, by Cynthia Leitich Smith, was an interesting update on the Peter Pan story. I've never been a big fan of old, i.e. "classic," children's tales. Many of them, like Peter Pan, just never struck a chord with me. Not the movies, nor the Disney versions.
In this version, Peter Pan is like a prejudiced middle aged man in the body of a child who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge he ever grew up or change the way he views the universe and everyone in it. Which is not far from, dare I say exactly, how he was depicted in the original, but gone is the turn-of-the-century veneer of "boys will be boys" mentality (it was first written in 1904), the racism and sexism are blatant and all Peter's flaws are laid bare in this retelling.
Peter still sees Wendy through her house window and wants her to be the storyteller to his Lost Boys. But this time, he has to get her away from her Muscogee Creek sister, Lily. Peter'll happily leave her behind because he can't conceive of her being anything other than an "Injun" (wince every time), and he thinks the island has all of those it needs. To get Wendy to fly away with him, he takes her toddler brother, Michael, who he doesn't really care about either, but is willing to accept as a Lost Boy until he can kick him out to join the other Native kids stuck on the island.
Lily is shocked when her half-sister and brother disappear. The family is teetering on divorce, however, so instead of alerting her family to their disappearance and getting help, she gets Peter's dislocated shadow to help fly her across the Neversea so she can rescue her sister and brother. The shadow deposits her on the island far away from her sister and Peter, with the other Native kids from several different tribes who're trapped there. The major flaw in her plan is she has no idea how she's going to get them all home.
Once on the wonky island, Lily learns how horribly Peter treats pretty much everyone who doesn't conform to his ideas of who they are and how they should behave, including the dreaded pirates and Captain Hook -- who's a woman just trying to break free of the island, not the hook-handled Peter-obsessed version from the movies and Disney treatments over the decades. It's cringe-inducing, every time, and Peter is not at all a likeable character. In the 21st century, there's very little to like about a character who clings to prejudices and stereotypes that are rapidly fading.
Peter does have a somewhat redemptive arc. There's still a ticking crocodile obsessed with eating whatever child it can catch, and Belle, the fairy, features prominently and has her own arc -- she comes to see and somewhat regret how she's enabled Peter to become such a horrid human being. Interestingly, the author breaks the 4th wall a lot to talk directly to the reader, which is a different narrative voice than I've seen in middle grade before. It can be quite effective in retaining readers.
The book also excellently showcases the prejudices and bigotry of the time period, the turn of the century. Women had only been recognized in US courts for a few decades and still couldn't vote. The Civil Rights era was decades away and racism toward anyone not-white, particularly Native peoples in this tale, is exposed as grotesque. It would make for an excellent comparative text analysis of how outdated many aspects of the original "beloved fairy tale" truly are.
It's a quick read. Enjoy!
