An official sequel to Peter Pan should be extraordinary, and an extraordinary book is precisely what Geraldine McCaughrean has given us with Peter Pan in Scarlet. McCaughrean is a beloved British children's author who has won more awards than I can count; she has made a career of telling classic stories flawlessly, and her new tale of the one-and-only child who never grew up is a charming, timeless creation fit to take its place alongside the original.

Scottish novelist J. M. Barrie first gave life to Peter Pan in the early 1900s in stories he told to the sons of a friend. He later put Peter in print in two novels and a stage play, whose rights he assigned to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in central London. The hospital has benefited from Barrie's gift for decades as love for Peter Pan has spread like chicken pox. With its copyright set to expire in 2007, the hospital decided to hold a competition to choose an author who would write an official sequel and extend the Peter Pan copyright. We are all very lucky that the winner was Geraldine McCaughrean.

To continue Barrie's story, McCaughrean was required, as she says, to "undo a few knots he had cast off so very absolutely." At the end of Peter Pan, everyone has grown up, found respectable jobs, and had children of their own, so her first task was to find a way to send Wendy and the Lost Boys (now the Old Boys) back to Neverland. Perplexed by crocodile dreams and swashbuckling thoughts, the Old Boys set about netting fairies in their gardens and wearing their children's clothes to get back into the proper frame of mind. Soon back among the craggy heights and mild lagoons of Neverland, they once again meet their old leader, the boy who would not grow up: Peter Pan himself.

But everything has changed! The lagoon water is filthy and oily, with a distinct lack of mermaids; the Neverwood is ominous and overgrown; and the fairies seem to be at war amongst themselves. While McCaughrean's Neverland is a bit less offhandedly violent than Barrie's, it boasts just as many odd twists and delicious shadows. The newly lost boys set out through this slightly broken terrain to claim the hidden treasure of Captain Hook, and along the way they encounter imaginary dragons, pirates in war paint, a circus of carnivorous animals, and a hidden valley of former nannies and nursemaids who have become wailing, grief-stricken witches.

The ensuing story is full of grand ideas and bold actions. It introduces new Neverland characters like Fireflyer, a voracious fairy with a talent for telling whoppers; it shows off a Wendy who's not at all afraid to stand up to Peter and all his crowing; and it solves the mystery of what ill thing has befallen the magical island located second to the right and straight on 'til morning. Read it, and you will believe, both in fairies and flying and in the great writing skill of Geraldine McCaughrean.

Peter Pan in Scarlet is a wonderful story and a beautifully made book. It has a handsome cloth jacket (dressed in red, just like Peter in Hook's second-best coat), rough-edged pages, and--best of all--interior illustrations done in a striking silhouette style by Scott Fischer. It's a perfect gift: clever, adventurous, and full of wonder. It's like holding fairy dust in your hand.

This gets said a lot, but here it really fits: recommended for all ages. (The reading level is ages 9 to 12.)

Review by Mark David Bradshaw, November 2, 2006

If you'd like a perfect copy of Barrie's Peter Pan"= to pair with this new volume, I'd recommend the 2003 edition from Starscape Books; it includes the original text and new illustrations by award-winning artist Charles Vess.

Love new classic books for young readers? Then you really must read Jean Birdsall's National Book Award winner The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/review1205-019.html