Valentine
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
When I first read Peter Pan, I must not have though much of it, because I promptly forgot about it adn went about my merry way being a kid. Then sometime later (when I was 17) I picked the book up again, and for some reason began to read it. And this time I couldn't put it down. It may have been because of the fairy-tale, matter-of-fact manner in which it describes the many wonderful adventures of the children, or it may have been because the descriptions of pirates and mermaids are so enchanting... but I think it's because I had grown up since the last time I read the book, and the book is really for grown-ups, and not children at all. There are things in the book that children would not understand, because we understand them only in hindsight, and want for them only then. <br><br>The magical world of Peter Pan--Peter, who is every bit a boy, who is cocky and malicious, sweet and adventurous by turn--is lost on adults. And the children who live in that world never understand what they have until it's too late, and gone. A wonderful book, and one of my favorites, along with Ender's Game, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.