31 books like Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

The ‘zombie apocalypse’ scenario has been used for years by risk management professionals to make the examination of possible societal breakdowns more fun and/or interesting.

By focusing on a hazard people know, like hurricanes or wildfires, audiences come to the discussion with pre-existing biases and, in many cases, first-hand experience. This forces the communicator to counter such bias before getting to key messages.

There’s never been an actual zombie apocalypse (nor is there likely to ever be one…), which means the zombie scenario adequately ‘levels the field’. It forces audiences to think beyond their go-to assumptions and introduces levels of uncertainty and unknown that are typical of major disasters.

This book, written without obvious heroes and heroines, in a documentary style, makes a perfect proxy for a disaster exercise scenario. I also believe it does a great job illustrating how different forms of governance result in different response strategies, which… show more.

Salinger broke a lot of unspoken rules of fiction-writing–and thus life–with Catcher. It was emotionally cauterizing for me as a teenager while incessantly trying, and failing, at learning rules adults apparently didn’t want us to know.

I’m certain many of my contemporaries identified with Holden Caulfield’s stream-of-consciousness introspection as deeply as I did. And when I think back about it, I find myself once again in the grip of how it was: ferreting out how life works but getting no guidance from parents, teachers, or bosses, only the terror of making mistake after mistake until the world didn’t make sense any longer. Just as had happened to Holden, but at last, I understood I was not alone in my confusion.

This was my father’s favourite book, and the teenage me agreed. It’s the greatest prolonged chase story ever written. An English tourist takes a pot shot at Hitler and is hunted all the way to the West Country in England, where he digs himself into the bank of an unused country lane, cornered like a fox. I lived in Devon at the time, and knew those huge high banks along the sides of ancient tree-covered lanes, and I and the village kids built ourselves exactly the same sort of hideaway, dug into a bank in the woods and invisible from above.

This is the weirdest book I ever read, I came across it when I was fifteen and I’ve never been quite able to get it out of my head, particularly the third section. I don't know if this is a recommendation or not, to be honest, but I'd like the opinion of fellow readers, if there are any out there. I’m guessing it might be a bit too obscure for most. But if anyone else reads it, let me know.

Having written an evolved installment of the Peter Pan saga myself, I’d be hard-pressed not to have Peter Pan’s first appearance in the literary world not on this list. Often overshadowed by JM Barrie’s second and more popular novel featuring Peter Pan, Peter and Wendy, it was actually in The Little White Bird where Peter first made his boyhood appearance, playing with his imaginary friends in the Kensington Gardens of England. This is a great look at Peter’s early development and documents his early thirst for adventure. The character of Peter was so popular upon the release of this book, in fact, that JM Barrie went on to write his most famous work next. When I read this story, I still have flashbacks of myself as a child, playing in my backyard where my mind would take me on timeless and limitless adventures…  

A fascinating in-depth insight into the personality, career, and work of Rackham, who I view as the king of the golden age of illustration. His fine draughtsmanship and ability to create fantastical worlds and characters that range from the grotesque to the beautiful inspired me from an early age. The pages are packed with artwork done in his trademark pen and ink and watercolour. 

As someone who writes fairy tale retellings where everyone shares one world as we all do now, I always love the tales that my own characters don’t get to interact with. That’s where A Land of Never After comes in. Featuring a pirate queen a strong-willed Wendy, and a trans Peter Pan. I think the diversity different people expand on is what makes humans so magical in the first place.

Peter Pan was one of the first books that made me want to write and create my own worlds. Neverland was an escape, not only for the Darling children but for my earliest stories. It was a place to be anyone, and go on endless adventures, without the limitations of adult expectations. The characters will always be special to me. We may have to grow up, but we can always keep special places like Neverland in our hearts and strive to create worlds that generations of readers will enjoy. 

One note is that while I will always love this book, it was published in 1911 and I cannot endorse the racist portrayals of Native Americans/Indigenous People. As the historical costume community says, ‘vintage style, not vintage values.’

Stella Bradshaw, an aspiring teenage actor in 1950s Liverpool, joins a local theater company for its Christmas production of Peter Pan, and everyone gets more than they bargained for. Stella is a willful working-class ingenue desperate to escape her broken home life, and her enthusiasm and fearlessness force a collection of dissolute, jaded theater actors and directors to confront their own career and life choices.

The revelation on the last page makes you reconsider everything that went before in a surprise ending that’s far from a gimmick.

Growing up, I was always more intrigued by Captain Hook, the villain of Peter Pan, more so than I was the title character. John Leonard Pielmeier writes an incredible “memoir” from the most famous fictional pirate and uses the beloved characters from the Peter Pan story of our childhoods in a whole new way. The backstory with Smee, the conflict with the infamous crocodile, and all the major things we see in the classic story are told in a whole new way. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend reading in tandem with the original Peter Pan for a fun way to see two sides to a story.