Dear Reader,
The Disney movie Peter Pan was one of the few movies I watched regularly as a young child. It also helped that there was a fantastic documentary, Making of Peter Pan, on the VHS. Half of the time I watched that tape for the documentary alone. The book Straight on Til Morning by Liz Braswell is a story that puts the focus on Wendy and only had Peter Pan in it for about a third of the book.
The best part of this novel is the characterization of Wendy and Tinker Bell. They are some of the best portrayed characters in this series. Wendy and Tinker Bell are the two main characters. They start out being enemies and then their relationship evolves to a good friendship. I wish the movie would have done something like this. Also this book feels like a grand adventure, which is what I wanted to feel when watching the movie.
What frustrated me the most was the portrayal of Captain Hook. When you first meet him, he oozes the personality of a sixties James Bond villain. However, his character is never consistent. There are moments where he is the Captain Hook of the movie. Then there moments where he feels more like the character of Goldfinger. Another minor frustration is the book takes 30 to 50 pages to get into the action. I was skimming through these pages because there was not much there that interested me or advanced the story.
Straight on til Morning is a good read with a slow start.
Matthew J. Croutch