My primary school’s library had a section closed off for the sixth graders, to which a child was only granted access to when they turned eleven. Accompanying you to the ‘Older Readers’ section, like a glimmering gold key, was a brand new library card that opened the gates to a vast new world, with books whose enlarged sizes you could marvel at with your friends, impress your parents into thinking they had a prodigy on their hands, and then, finally, devour in your twin size bed back home.
It is a rite of passage I remember fondly. The powdery sheen of curiosity is still sticking to me, that section being akin to a rabbit hole that led me down a world of reading.
It was also the first leap into ‘growing up’: that ever sibylline phrase attributed to the unstoppable passage of time that stretches your age upwards. Fittingly enough, then, the first book I picked up from there was an adaptation of a famous J.M Barrie play about Neverland and an immortal child, Peter and Wendy.
Peter and Wendy is a love story*. A boy who never grows up and a girl who can’t help but get older court each other in this colourful adventure story punctuated with Lost Boys, pirates and fairies. We all remember our victorious crows when the crocodile finally gets his jaws around Captain Hook, an antagonist that’s a stand-in for all the authoritative villains in our real world.
But this thrilling childhood adventure was not all that I remembered from the book. The unexpected take-away from it for me back then was this: a match between staying young and growing older was wholly possible; your childhood whims could be pocketed in your extending limbs. Hence my belief that it was, in essence, a love story.
It was a realisation I forgot quite quickly, to be fair. I was never averse to the idea of growing up—until this summer, that is.
No one tells you that the last summer before your senior year has you holding a ticking time-bomb in your hands. It is confusing, and, after a while, it begins to feel like a dawdling conclusion to an era you didn’t even know you were living.
Somehow, in the midst of all this, I picked up Peter and Wendy again. Maybe I was searching for an answer—what did it mean to grow up?
On my second reading, the novel provided me—rather than just a tour of childhood nostalgia I had suddenly wanted to take—a cautionary tale of what happens when you fly away with your youth. The assertion that Wendy knew she must grow up gave me, ironically, a sense of comfort, her acceptance a reassurance I didn’t know I needed. And although discovering that the Lost Boys grew up to be dull men and seeing that Peter forgot Wendy in the blink of a year made me sigh resignedly, the fact that Peter, harbinger of childhood joys, would always be searching for a companion was an acknowledgement: You will have to let go of your childhood one day, but the delights will always linger, like pixie dust.
I have a deep fondness for Peter and Wendy, and for all content relating to Peter Pan, really. It is well documented that J.M Barrie’s intention with the story was a way for him to fulfill his own childish desires. A similar intention fueled my reread, but this time, when I finished it, it felt as though I made another leap into a new, different age than the one I did when I was eleven. Like Wendy, I had waited all summer for my childhood to return to me, and when it did, I realised that we were perhaps not as acquainted anymore. And that’s okay.
“Two is the beginning of the end,” warns the opening paragraph of the novel. But this time, I feel that the end is a new beginning.
*bypassing all academic discourse about who the characters are meant to represent in Barrie’s life, of course
ur writing is so warm and welcoming, v gentle to read :”) today was my first day of senior yr and i could not relate more to everything u wrote.
i'm not entirely familiar with the story of peter pan and wendy (cardinal sin i know) but i was not aware that the lost boys would grow up to be "dull men" or that peter forgot about wendy in the blink of a YEAR(?!) that is so devastating(???) yet your takeaway is so nice, i love your interpretation: “You will have to let go of your childhood one day, but the delights will always linger, like pixie dust.” like nothing ever really leaves you… :”)
having very limited info about the story of peter/wendy made me think that their story was forever confined in childhood/the time they had together … so knowing the ending now where they eventually grow up is admittedly a little sad, but v comforting at the same time … ur entry reminded me about how life continues no matter what, and how it doesn’t have to be as sad or as scary as we think it has to be :”)
In periods of great changes I found I often return back to dear childhood media. It seems like you returned to a book that couldn’t be MORE fitting to your current situation, to this great passage. The parts about not being averse to growing up until this moment was incredibly relatable to me - I’ve always wanted to grow up earlier than I could’ve, and the sadness for the passed time only started showing up recently. Still, I absolutely adore your point - “I had waited all summer for my childhood to return to me, and when it did, I realised that we were perhaps not as acquainted anymore. And that’s okay” - just like how you still remember curiosity about your new access to the previously forbidden part of the bookstore, we can remember the past and those crucial moments of growing up fondly too. There’s always an opportunity to reread childhood books and books we currently have yet to read with new perspectives and with acceptance of the changes life brought us. Parts of our childhood always remain with us, and there’s joy in seeing the person you’re becoming when you look back on them. The emotion was perfectly captured and made me think od why I keep returning to old favorites with such fondness - you really got it!