“A ll children grow up. All except one.” Thatspecial child is Peter Pan, and since making his debut on the stagein 1904, this eternal youth has carried boys and girls off tomagical, marvelous Neverland. It’s a trip that all kids want tomake, and with this easy-to-read version of the classic, everyonecan fly “second to the right, and straight on till morning” withPeter. Along with Wendy, John, and Michael Darling, they’ll meetthe fairy Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, and the menacing CaptainHook.
When Natalie opens the door of her bird's cage, Chirpie flies straight to the branch of a tree. Natalie asks some local poets to help lure Chirpie back, and they try all sorts of tricks. Nothing works, even when the poets make a beautiful bird garden, and Natalie offers an unraveled old sweater: "A bird loves to build a beautiful nest / String and yarn make a safe place to rest." Then she finds the cause of the problem: a cat lurking under a bush. After Natalie chases it away, Chirpie comes down and, later, the beautiful garden fills with other birds. The lively spare poetic lines, many in rhyme, are nicely matched with the bright line-and-watercolor, double-page spreads, which show the city garden in a bustling, diverse neighborhood in wide circles, true to the bird's-eye view from the tree. Rochman, Hazel。
