From our school diary...

At the moment, I'm reading Peter Pan with the younger boys (though everyone somehow gravitates into the room when I start reading)!

It's a children's version, but a beautifully literary one, "retold by May Byron for little people with the approval of the author". The other day while we were reading, we came across a delightful paragraph which isn't in the complete version online (I looked):

"At this moment the door banged open, and slammed shut. Not of itself, of course: but because Mr. Darling rushed in, in a raving, ramping, roaring rage. Mr Darling was a kind man, but he had got what they call a short temper. That is, his temper was very good for a short while, and then very bad for a short while, and so on, turn and turn about. This was often rather awkward, because he changed so suddenly. This time the bad temper had come on all in a minute. Mr. Darling had been trying to tie his party tie, and it wouldn't let him fix it. Ties are often like that, especially if they know you are in a hurry."

I actually bought the book because it was illustrated by Mabel Lucy Atwell. When I was a little girl, I used to have a copy with her illustrations. My original copy, which fell apart many, many years ago, had colour illustrations, and these are two-tone, but they're the same much-loved ones.

There is a brief biography of Mabel Lucy Atwell, together with samples of her illustrations (including some of those from Peter Pan) at Women Children's Book Illustrators.

Copyright © Ruth Marshall 2001

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