Peter Pan Flies Again

Posted on March 14, 2005

Peter Pan is about to fly again--with a new author. It was announced at the London Book Fair that award-winning children's author Geraldine McCaughrean has been given the go-ahead to write the authorized sequel to Peter Pan. The copyright to the book is owned by the trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who launched a search to find the perfect author to take over the series. Ms. McCaughrean has won the Whitbread Children's Book Award three times, most recently for Not the End of the World (Oxford University Press).

She has written more than 130 books and plays. Ms. McCaughrean has one chapter and a synopsis written, and says she'll be finished by the end of 2005. Of course, everyone is curious to know the plot. Ms. Caughrean says that the story will be set in the 1930s and would have themes of exploration and dressing up - "on the grounds that a child, when dressing up, becomes someone else in a way we lose in adulthood."