When I was first given Peter Pan, I was amazed at the beautifully crafted cut out models of pirate ships, Peter Pan and his friends flying over the clock tower, and the crockodile opening his chops to chomp on Captian Hook. As I opened the pages, music, clock chimes, children’s laughter, Captain Hook’s hounting laugh, and the crock’s clock ticking accompanied the story. I wasn’t sure if that would be distracting to children listening to the story of Peter Pan.
Children showed me that the sound effects and musical accompaniament to the story actually drew them into the book. Their interest and attention span seemed to grow with each showing of the book. First we just opened each page, looked at the pop-ups and listened to the voices, music or sound effects. We talked about them a bit. My littlest friend, a 2 year-old, kept saying, “Can you do it again?” as I opened to a new page. Then we started to read part of the story as they lingered on a page. Finally, I was able to read the whole book as I filled in the story between the beautiful illustrations.
The strength of this book is the amazing three dimentional renderings of the scenes from Netherland, Captain Hook’s pirate ship and Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, and the kids flying out the nursery window over the city and the sounds bringing Netherland to life.
The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of the author. “Peter Pan” was provided for review by Silver Dolphin Books .