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    Peter Pan
    Peter Pan
    Peter Pan
    Audiobook4 hours

    Peter Pan

    Written by J. M. Barrie

    Narrated by Donada Peters

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Peter Pan first flew across a London stage in 1904, overwhelming audiences with its tale of a magical boy who never grows up, who lures young Wendy and her brothers to Neverland, where they meet pirates, Indians, fairies, and the Lost Boys. J. M. Barrie revised and expanded the story and published it as this novel. For children, it remains a marvelous mix of fantasy and adventure, featuring unique, imaginative characters who frisk and frolic in an enchanting land.

    For adults, the story of Peter and the Lost Boys works on a much deeper level, speaking to them about the inevitable loss of childhood and the ability "to fly." The climactic duel between Peter Pan and Captain Hook is both a swashbuckling romp and a moving metaphor for the complex, poignant struggle between innocent but irresponsible youth and tainted but dependable maturity.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 25, 2008
    ISBN9781400178667
    Author

    J. M. Barrie

    J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie (1860--1937) was a novelist and playwright born and educated in Scotland. After moving to London, he authored several successful novels and plays. While there, Barrie befriended the Llewelyn Davies family and its five boys, and it was this friendship that inspired him to write about a boy with magical abilities, first in his adult novel The Little White Bird and then later in Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 play. Now an iconic character of children's literature, Peter Pan first appeared in book form in the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, about the whimsical adventures of the eternal boy who could fly and his ordinary friend Wendy Darling.

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    Reviews for Peter Pan

    4/5

    155 ratings133 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Summary: Short punchy adventure story for kids and adults who want to remember what it was like to be a kid.

      Things I liked:

      * Perspective: I really loved the way he was able to really nail the way some kids look at the world (or at least it reminded me of how I used to see the world when I was a kid).

      * The narrators voice. The charming English professor style reminded me of books like Narnia and The Once and Future King.

      * The dark undertones: I definitely felt the author trying to share a few things outside of a kids adventure story, it made me glad to be reading a book versus watching a movie.


      Things I didn't like:

      * The perspective changed quite a bit quite quickly (made it a little hard to follow sometimes).

      * Some of the characters felt a little boxed up. You got given a character portrait versus the opportunity to find out about the character from their words and actions (made it a little bit more like a comic book or a fairy tale then a novel.

      Highlight: The end with Wendy and her daughter. The cumulation of the novel made me sad and happy. I think sticking to the character of Pan versus taking the easy option of having everyone live happily ever after was bold and effective choice. I loved the bitter-sweet feeling it left me with. . I remember about two pages into the book I had a great tingly feeling that made me already glad I was reading a book versus watching a disney movie.
    • 3/5
      I loved the beginning and end of this book, with the poignant reflections on the pain both of letting children grow up and of losing them before they're grown, but feel uncertain about the middle. I remembered pretty quickly why I stopped reading this aloud to my daughter when she was four or five when the Lost Boys shot Wendy out of the sky.

      The whole thing is just so violent, what with killing pirates and being eaten by crocodiles and Tinkerbell's homicidal jealousy of Wendy. My inclination is to shy away from the book because of this, but when I sat and really thought about it, it's really a sort of childish violence. It reads like the kinds of games my otherwise nonviolent children play together around the house as they work out the intense emotions of childhood and try to make sense of their world.

      This book reminds me that my own kids have the same kind of melodramatic, violent imaginary play going on as they pretend to hunt and skin animals and protect their couch cushion fort from enemies. I think I feel uncomfortable with the book because I've not figured out just how to reconcile my own children's sometimes not-so-peaceloving playtime themes.

      Well, whatever my own hangups are with the book, my kids enjoyed it. I can psychoanalyze myself on my own time.
    • 4/5
      Most people are familiar with the basics of the story of Peter Pan. However familiar you may be, however, if you are a fan of juvenile literature this is one that you should read.It's not really that the storyline or adventures are that much different than what I knew of them or expected them to be, but to hear the story through J.M. Barrie's own words gives a slightly different tone and perspective to the tale that I was previously lacking. Barrie has a wonderful way with painting pictures with his phrases and a quirky sense of humor that comes through in the text.To be honest, I was a little put off by this quirkiness when I first started the story and during the first chapter was kind of wondering if it was going to be too odd for me. But, I stuck to it and was quickly rewarded as the story moved on and, it seemed, Barrie got carried on the winds to Neverland along with the children.A great adventure story and a classic for the ages that also has some keen insight into human behavior and the realities of growing up.A side note on this particular version: If you have access to the edition "illustrated" by Raquel Jaramillo, I would recommend reading it over a non-illustrated version. Her computer and art enhanced photos add an even more magical atmosphere to the story and are beautifully done.
    • 5/5
      I always find something new in this story.
    • 5/5
      Totally charming! Jim Dale's audio narration is superb!
    • 4/5
      Another strange story I list among my favorites and keep coming back to. I don't really think children can fully appreciate the story.
    • 2/5
      I really did not enjoy this book. It’s really very dark; conditions are bad in Neverland – frequently no food, everyone sleeping in one bed, their clothes in tatters. And they are subject to terror – pirates and redskins, not to mention mermaids and the beasts of the forest. All that being said, I was bored.I never read it as a child, and I am certain that I would not have enjoyed having it read to me as a child. (Although I did enjoy watching the TV special airing of the play starring Mary Martin.) Maybe the problem is that I, like Wendy at the end, have grown up.
    • 4/5
      This is the original Peter Pan story written in 1911. It is so funny, and I really enjoyed it! After seeing all the movies and stories over the years, it was interesting to read the original author's words. I would recommend this one!
    • 4/5
      I'd never read Peter Pan before, and coming to it for the first time as an adult, I found it to be wonderful. It straddles that old world line of horrible old children's stories. It has moments that are far more Brothers Grimm than Disney; the Lost Boys are unrepentant killers and they are killed in turn, while Tiger Lily, Tinkerbelle and Wendy are winkingly far more away of romance than Peter. I was less charmed by the relentless patriarchy of the only female characters being shoehorned into a mother role by every boy or man in sight. I would have liked one adventure where Wendy was her own hero.
    • 4/5
      Not your Disney version of the story. The illustrations in this edition, while nicely done, are illogically placed. I was pleasantly surprised by the seriousness and adult content of the story. In the end, I was left with a sad impression not of the boy who never grew up, but the boy who was never forgotten.
    • 4/5
      Having been exposed to the adulterated Disney version at a young age, I found the original a wonderful surprise. The story is a meditation on the inevitability of loss and the unearthly, unsustainable price of innocence. Like all great children’s literature, this is hardly written for children at all. It is, in fact, a stern corrective for those adults who tend to wax nostalgic about childhood.
    • 2/5
      Man, I do not remember Barrie/Narrator being as angry and hateful during the end when I first read it. Issues.Way more fun than any version based on it, pretty much. More violent, more histrionic, more like children in general. We are simply beasts when we're young and I swear only folks from the that whole UK area are spiteful enough to capture that.
    • 5/5
      The most beautiful, delicately illustrated, unabridged edition I've ever seen. No need to comment on the content. Everyone knows how wonderful the story is.
    • 5/5
      Scot and I read this one out loud...it was really good! Again, this classic is better than the movie! One of my favorite images..."Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this and you would find it very interesting to watch. It's quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on Earth you picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek, as if it were a nice kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out the prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”
    • 3/5
      Everyone knows the story of Peter Pan. Like many, I had only seen the Disney version of the movie and never read the book. The bare bones of the story are the same. Peter Pan comes in through the open window of the Darling home one night and the three Darling children--Wendy, Michael, and John--fly off with him to Neverland. All of the characters are present--Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, Tiger Lily, the Lost Boys, Smee, and the crocodile.What surprised me the most was that the tone was much darker than the Disney movie. I purchased this book with the hope of having my 8 year old read it, but I think I'll wait until he's a little older. The reading level isn't difficult, but there is much more violence. Neverland is not a happy place, but a dangerous place where the Lost Boys are on constant alert so as to not be killed by the pirates, Indians, or wild animals.Peter is not as likable in the book. He is incredibly arrogant and selfish. That alone wouldn't bother me if it weren't for the fact that his cockiness put the lives of others in danger. Peter originally sought out Wendy so that the Lost Boys could have a mother. Peter was very self-centered and throughout the story you could tell that he didn't really care about Wendy. When she ultimately went home, he was just sad that he didn't have someone to clean up after him.Tinker Bell was another character I found to be quite different in the book. She was a nasty little thing with a sharp tongue.Barrie is an excellent story teller but Peter Pan wasn't as captivating as I'd hoped. I can see why it is a classic. I'm glad I read it, although I doubt that this is a book that I will revisit.
    • 4/5
      I'd never read this book before and I don't think I've ever seen the panto or the whole of any of the films either, but of course I vaguely knew the plot from seeing various parts of the cartoon version on those Disney Time TV programs that used to be shown every bank holiday. It is a darker story than I was expecting; the fairies and mermaids are otherworldly and treacherous and Peter's forgetfulness makes him an unreliable and at times unnerving companion. He isn't really human at all any more - he spent too long with the fairies and that is never a good thing. Because Peter Pan refuses to grow up, he will remain 'gay and innocent and heartless' forever.
    • 3/5
      “Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.” Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie is a well known classical book. All children grow up but one, Peter Pan. Peter lives in the Neverland. One day, in one of his trips to hear stories told in the Darling's house he gets caught and loses his shadow. When he returns to get back his shadow, Wendy is awoken by the sounds of Peter crying. Wendy helped Peter sow on his shadow and Peter realising the importance of a mother figure asks her to go with him and be his mother and mother to the lost boys. Wendy and her two brothers were very excited and with a bit of fairy dust they fly their way to the Neverland. In the version of the book I read there were two stories; Peter in Kensington Gardens and Peter and Wendy. This book was one of the most confusing books. I had watched the movie and cartoon versions of Peter Pan and so I was expecting something similar. However, when I first start reading the narrators are the Davies brothers and they talk about things like baby castle where the most sought up baby lives by herself and all these baby attractions in the kensington gardens, it felt like I was reading the wrong book. Finally when I read the name Peter Pan I was relieved, but not for long. Peter Pan was completely different to what I was expecting. Firstly he was only a week old, he wore no clothes, he rode a goat, he lived with the birds because everyone was a bird who flew to their parents' home and there turned into humans.This is definitely not the story that I know and it really just seemed like Barrie was a bit loopy. When I reached the story of Peter and Wendy I was ever so confused. Peter Pan finally seemed to resemble the ones from the movie but what happened? I thought that the first story was an introduction or background story to how Peter Pan came to be but he was much older in Peter and Wendy and he didn't live with the birds any more. I found out later that these were two completely separate stories written by Barrie. One could say that it was partially my fault for being ignorant on the stories but I really don't see why an author would write two or three stories with the same character and yet completely different tales. It wasn't as if this was a sequel showing Peter when he grew up because Peter Pan does not grow up. Peter Pan may seem like an innocent title but it is not for young children. The book is very violent. Peter Pan seems to love war, blood and gore. It turns out that it was Peter who gave Hook his Hook. And Hook while he seems like a lovable baddie in the movies really wants to kill a boy who is no more than a little kid who still has all his baby teeth. Secondly the book is very stereotypical and quite racist to American Indians. I'm sure it didn't occur to J.M. Barrie how disrespectful he was being when writing about the Indians, just like he wrote the stereotypical pirates and mermaids. The Indians are described as being inferior, and quite stupid, even making Peter Pan the 'Great White Father'. Now we know that this racism is not something we teach our children. Also, going back to Peter in Kensington Gardens the fairies are said to have blue necks. Their blue necks aren't just something magical and pretty but they are quite gruesome and something quite scary to be telling children. Barrie writes that it was considered royal and beautiful to have blue neck so they would cut themselves and let their blue blood cover their neck and then dry. This is definitely not beautiful!I knew Peter Pan was a bit of a show off but never would I have thought that I would actually say that I hate Peter. Reading the book just got me really frustrated at the character. Peter Pan is one of the most stuck-up and annoying characters EVER!! He believes he is better than everyone else and he believes so much in make believe that he basically starves everyone by having make belief dinner and lunch. He is also very forgetful and when he goes back to get Wendy at spring time he gets angry that she grew up when really he was the one that didn't come for a few years. Peter Pan also got the children in trouble various times. When he could have remained quiet and everything would just go away he has to go and play games with Hook giving away their disguise. Peter Pan nearly locked out Wendy and her brothers. He is seriously so selfish. He may only be a fictional character but I really just wanted to go yell some sense at him. I would recommend this book to others but only because it is a classic and it is always good to know the original story behind movies. It was hysterical but not in the way it should be; I was laughing almost through the whole of Peter in Kensington Gardens because of the nonsense that was said. If you do decide to read remember to throw out any ideas and concepts you have for Peter Pan. Read with a blank canvas, as if you have never hear the name Peter Pan or else the story will just get confusing and strange since the movie and the book doesn't completely match up.
    • 4/5
      In this classic tale of the boy who never grows old Wendy, is whisked away to Neverland to become the mother of aband of lost boys. She faces many adventures and dangers as she tries to take care of this group of rowdy boys. Great book.
    • 4/5
      The JM Barrie original bears only a passing resemblance to the 1953 Disney movie. Yes, all the characters are there, but what happens in the novel is much darker and deeper than the Disney-fied version. It is truly an examination of the inner child that refuses to grow up. We see both the good and the evil that dwells within the heart of man.
    • 2/5
      Must read for boys and girls..
    • 3/5
      What a bizarre and surprising little book! As did many people, I grew up on Disney’s Peter Pan, so reading Barrie’s original at the age of 48 was quite the shock. Peter is cocky, heartless, tragic, and rather fiendish (Barrie’s words, not mine), vaguely malevolent as well as irresistibly charismatic. Tinker Bell is stout and inclined to call people “silly asses,” and Captain Hook is obsessed with the traditions of his public school (private school in the U.S.). This ain’t Walt’s Neverland.It is a meditation on childhood and the meaning of leaving it behind. As well as the inevitability of death and the realization (both disturbing and reassuring) that there will always be another generation to take our place.The opening passage sets the stage: “All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.” Ironically, you must be adult to appreciate the best moments of Peter Pan for its not until you’ve passed through childhood that you can understand all that “Two is the beginning of the end” entails.
    • 4/5
      I need to point out that I read this book (re-read actually) under strange circumstances. I am currently working on a translation and adaptation of the play Peter Pan, which this book is based on. I’m therefor reading a bit like a vacuum cleaner, hunting for differences, shifts in perspective and situations to use. I’m also very sensitive of translation, since much of the text is the same in the play and the book. So: overly meticulous, pen in hand and semi-bored with the material going in. Perhaps not the fairest of set-ups.I’m not going into the story, as I’m sure all of you know it, sort of. But in the middle of the adventure, the whimsy and the drastic turns, this tale of growing up or not, of roleplays and relationships between parents and children is pretty damn complex. And I guess that might be my main objection with Barrie’s work in its many incarnations – there are so many things I wished he would have explored further. There’s a definite quality to the wild, almost random episode stacking and restless joking, but I can’t help missing a stronger structure at times, to explore the more profound sides of this story rather than mentioning them in passing. Well, that and the annoying notion that the highest wish of every little girl is to find someone to take care of and nurture, like a law of nature. Still, a more than fun material to work with, where new things emerge constantly.
    • 1/5
      23 (re-read) Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up, by J. M. Barrie. This was on Starrett's 1955 list of "books which will live", and I forgot to check my list of books read and so read it. It seemed so familiar, but I did not think I had actually read it. But I did--tho probably not in play form, as this was. It is so saccharine, I really cannot say as an adult it is worth reading. (read Aug. 8, 1998)
    • 5/5
      Having been a fan of Peter all my life since listening to the Mary Martin musical soundtrack at a tender age, I am surprised that it took me so long to actually read the original, unabridged story. It is, as an actor from the most recent film version put it, "The most famous book nobody's ever read."I find the book incredible...besides sheer entertainment value and a magical quality that will keep the kids mesmerized, it is packed with odd psychological symbolism that many adults will recognize as the author's venting of his own childhood traumas. A brief look into Barrie's bio makes a lot of the stranger things in Pan far more understandable, if undoubtedly tragic. Barrie does have a rather flippant way of engaging the reader, teasing and goading much the same way as his mischeivous, conscience-less hero. But he also writes with poetic beauty, filling his characters with rich and quirky descriptive elements such as Peter being somehow very like the unnattainable kiss Mrs. Darling keeps in the right-hand corner of her mouth (which only he is then able to get). The book does betray the social conventions of its time in Wendy's attitude toward motherhood (which is only problematic if you are a raving feminist) and a bit more uncomfortably in its depiction of the Indian culture on Neverland. These elements need not detract from the story if one is careful to put them in context for its young readers. The recent film adaptation, although closest of all the films in its adherence to character, is misleading in its interpretation of the story being about the sexual awakening of adolescence. The hidden theme of the book is overwhelmingly the innocence of childhood - innocence in the sense not of inherent goodness, but in inherent un-self-consciousness. Peter is a symbol of eternal childhood, not human at all, and as such is incapable of reciprocating or even understanding Wendy's budding romantic notions. He is selfish, but not self-aware. Ultimately, he is the lament of one man who lost his own mother too soon, and consequently never grew up himself. Be assured, however, that all this goes right over the heads of young readers, and even adults will only catch it by reading critically and analytically. Brilliant literature that deserves its place as a long-beloved children's classic
    • 4/5
      reminding me once again what it means to be a child - innocent, imaginative, and vile all rolled into one. It also confirmed why the ending to Hook is probably the most tragic ending to a movie EVER.
    • 4/5
      I re-read this recently, and it was actually much better than I'd remembered from my childhood.
    • 5/5
      I had never read Peter Pan as a child, and I'm so glad I did now. I thoroughly enjoyed the charming prose, and also how it really speaks to a child's imagination. I wish I had read this aloud to my children when they were young, because they would have eaten up the adventures of Peter and the boys fighting Hook and the pirates. Barrie gets how a child thinks -- or doesn't think -- about implications of the wild times they love to play at. I'm sure this is a fantastic read aloud.
    • 4/5
      Peter Pan, Wendy Darling, Captain Hook, Smee, Tinker Bell and all other now famous characters make, what I believe to be, their first appearance here. Pan leads Wendy and her brothers off to Neverland and they have many adventures. And the narrator has a lot of opinions about what happens along the way. All the movie adaptations make the story light and magical and innocent, but this book is actually very creepy in parts. There are some unsettling aspects, such as the idea that mothers flip through our thoughts when we're asleep and take out the bad ones or that Peter might just forget you after taking you on an adventure, leaving you stuck. There's the fact that battles are bloody and real and many other things that make this not the nice neat children's story that I expected it to be. None of that even addresses the problematic representation of the "Indians," who are said to be of the "Picaninny" tribe. According to wikipedia, the term was once affectionate, which may be how Barrie thought of it when writing — but it has long been thought of as derogatory at this point, so that part doesn't hold up well. That aside, Peter Pan is a great magical, adventure story. The characters are semi-one dimensional, but that suits the fairy tale tone. There's a reason the story has become a popular classic.
    • 5/5
      still one of my favorite light reads. great book for anyone :D
    • 5/5
      This was so fun to read, my introduction to Peter Pan was in 1955 when Mary Martin did the TV presentation. This follows what I remember of the TV performance as I remember it. It brought back so many nice memories.