Angieville

This is both my first Jodi Lynn Anderson book and my first Peter Pan retelling! I know there are quite a few out there, but for whatever reason I just haven't dipped into that pool yet. I've seen and enjoyed multiple screen adaptations, but this was my first outing with a retelling on the page. The thing about Peter Pan is that I read it a couple of years ago with my oldest boy and it was . . . rather devastating, actually. In the very best way, of course. But the emotions were real and they cut deep. So I probably should have expected to be a bit wrung out upon finishing Tiger Lily . Because even though it's all about Tiger Lily (and is told from Tinker Bell's perspective), it's about Peter, too. And Neverland. And the Lost Boys. And Hook. And every other excruciating bit of that original story that so embodies the sense of wonder and loss endemic to childhood and growing up. All of which is to say that beyond this point there be emotions . Proceed with caution....

Once upon a time my boy was small and I read stories to him every night. Make that morning, noon, and night! Somehow he came out of the womb with a taste for swords and sorcery like his mama and the two of us sized one another up and knew we would get on together just fine. When he was three he wanted to be Peter Pan for Halloween because it was one of his favorite movies. Of course, now he's not so small: And he reads on his own. ( Calvin & Hobbes is his current favorite) But even though so many other things have crowded in to fill up his days, things like going to school and doing his homework and playing with friends, we still read together every night in the Big Bed. And a few nights ago we finished the fourth Henry Huggins book and he asked me for something different. So we wandered into the library and I scoured the shelves for just the right book. My eyes lighted on that small paperback copy of   Peter Pan  I bought on a sentimental whim in Nottingham years a...