Peter Pan: Peter and Wendy and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Peter Pan flies into the Darling family's nursery in London to retrieve his lost shadow and, in doing so, meets Wendy, John, and Michael. He persuades Wendy to come with him to Neverland to be a mother to his band of Lost Boys, and the children fly off over the rooftops toward an island of pirates, mermaids, and a native tribe.

In Neverland, Wendy settles into the role of storyteller and caretaker while the boys clash repeatedly with Captain Hook, the vain and menacing pirate captain who lost a hand to Peter and to the crocodile that has stalked him ever since, a ticking clock inside it warning of its approach. The children's adventures build toward a confrontation with Hook's crew that puts the Darling boys and the Lost Boys in real danger.

J. M. Barrie had already made Peter Pan famous as a stage play in 1904; he novelized the story as Peter and Wendy in 1911. Beneath its adventure-story surface, the book is unusually frank about the cost of Peter's refusal to grow up, framing Neverland's timelessness as something wondrous and faintly sad at once — a children's story that keeps one eye on what childhood costs to leave behind.