Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

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What a good read to start off the new year.  I'd never known Peter Pan to be a chapter book.  I guess I always assumed it was a children's picture book or something.  The Disney version never played a huge part in my childhood.  I only just began to understand the story a few months ago after I watched the Disney movie and read Stephen Chbosky's Perks of Being a Wallflower.  In Chbosky's novel about a passive high school student named Charlie, one of the professors assigns Charlie to read Peter Pan.  That was the first time the novel came to my attention.  I'd never known Peter Pan to be such a deep story.  It was around that time that I decided I wanted to read the book myself. 

            The book was full of everything a fantasy needs to be great – child innocence, love, adventure, intriguing villains, and mysterious settings.  The book also focused on two very intriguing characters – Wendy Darling and Peter Pan himself.  I found it very interesting to watch a boy go on living as a boy because he doesn't want to grow up.  Don't we all have the fear of growing up?  The adult world is scary.  Signing contracts, finding a job, finding a place to live, spending too much money on things you need and not enough on things you want, and living on your own.  It's all a bit overwhelming to think about.  This goes to show what a deep character Peter Pan is despite his overconfidence and self love.  Wendy, on the other hand, I imagined to be a young Belle from Beauty and the Beast – telling stories constantly and having a wide imagination.  Wendy's character pushed the story forward in my opinion, showing her transformation from the beginning when she only imagined such places as Neverland to the end when she knew she couldn't stay young forever. 

            Despite the two main characters and the fantasy elements to the book, there was a big downside for me while reading.  I once read a book called King Solomon's Mines in which there was a section (maybe 30 pages long) of battle scenes that I just couldn't sit through because they were so unbelievably boring.  This same thing occurred as I read Peter Pan.  Many of the battle scenes proved very dull and I sort of skipped sentences just to get through certain chapters.

            Overall, Peter Pan is a classic and I'm very glad I took the time to read it.  It was a great novel to start off 2012.