Peter and the Starcatchers

“Peter blinked his eyes, but there was no question: the rat was suspended in space, as if hanging from a string, but there was no string.” This is a sample of the book Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson. The story Peter and the Starcatchers is an excellent play on the classic Peter Pan by James M. Barrie.

This spellbinding story opens with Peter (who is quite like the Peter in the story Peter Pan) and his band of five orphan boys, that board a ship called Never Land. On the ship Peter meets a strange girl named Molly, the daughter of Leonard Aster a foreign ambassador for King Zarboff the Third. She has a big secret that she is not telling anyone about. While on board, Peter sees a strange occurrence involving a mysteriously magical trunk and a sailor. This trunk becomes the center of the conflict between good and those who crave power. This conflict kept me hooked and guessing till the very end.

On a different note, a fearsome pirate named Black Stache is chasing down a ship that is challenging his title as being the fastest ship around but that is not his only reason for hunting the ship. He heard from a captured sailor that the ship Wasp is carrying a treasure of great worth to the country of Rundoon. Black Stache is trying to capture the ship before it gets to its destination. However, during the chase Black Stache finds out that the ship is as fast as he heard so therefore he launches his secret weapon, the Ladies. Not just full of action but also has humor and romance, (my favorite part of the book too!!)

Meanwhile on the Never Land Molly pokes around a bit and finds that a major switch has been pulled. She tries to warn her father who is on the Wasp but, being in the middle of nowhere she can’t tell him so, she settles for the next best thing, a messenger. A porpoise named Ammm but, since Molly has a limited vocabulary in Porpoise, her father can’t understand the entire message. Black Stache figures out that the treasure is not on the Wasp and is on the Never Land. So is heading right for the Never Land to claim his treasure. During this time a gargantuan storm is brewing on the horizon.

A fast-paced fantasy packed with humor and wit, Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson did an outstanding job on bringing the traditional characters to new life while also putting a different twist to the climactic end. I highly recommend Peter and the Starcatchers to Peter Pan fans and (eternal) children ages 10 and up. After reading this hard-to-put-down story I am craving the rest of the series. I WANT MORE!!!