User blog:Cloudmonkey/Book Talk: Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

You've probably all read J.M. Barrie's story of Neverland? Of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, Wendy and her brothers, Captain Hook and his crew? No? Well you'll have at least seen the animated Disney version of Peter Pan? Didn't you ever wonder why Peter never grew up and where he got his powers? Where the Lost Boys came from? How Captain Hook and Peter came to be such bitter enemies?

You'll find the answers to all those questions and more in Peter and the Starcatchers. This is no sugar-coated tale for little children. It is a dark tale of real danger and uncontrolled magic in which lives are irrevocably changed.

The tale takes place before Wendy and her brothers were even born. Peter is no more than a Lost Boy himself, an orphan from St. Norbert's Home for Wayward Boys. He and some other boys from the orphanage have just been turned over to the tender mercies of William Slank, first officer of the ship Never Land. There they discover they are bound for the Kingdom of Rundoon for a life of slavery or worse.

Peter and his fellow orphans never reach the Kingdom of Rundoon (at least not in this tale) but Peter does encounter a girl named Molly who can speak to dolphins, a mysterious chest of glowing Starstuff, an uncharted island of fierce natives, and the notorious pirate Black 'Stache and his first mate Smee. (Yes, Black 'Stache does bear a remarkable resemblance to Captain Hook, except for having two good hands.)