Muscogee Creek author Cynthia Leitich Smith (Ancestor Approved; Hearts Unbroken) reimagines J.M. Barrie's beloved yet problematic children's classic Peter Pan in this wry, immersive fantasy about female friendship, inclusivity and the meaning of family.
Although relatives remember a recent time "when the girls were inseparable," the friendship between 12-year-old stepsisters Wendy Darling and Lily Roberts has hit turbulence. Their parents are separating for the summer, with Wendy and her father traveling to New York while Lily and the girls' four-year-old brother, Michael, stay in Tulsa, Okla., with their mother. On Wendy's last night in Tulsa, Lily worries divorce means she and Wendy can't stay sisters, and Wendy is frustrated because Lily won't fly to New York with them. The tension keeps the girls from noticing "the tiny, sparkling glow, nearly hidden in the wise old oak tree" or the "crouched, shadowy figure within its branches" until Peter Pan and Belle the Fairy zip through the bedroom window. Practical Lily, who is Muscogee Creek, distrusts Peter immediately, a sentiment reinforced by his talk of "Injuns." But his magic beguiles fanciful Wendy, who is white, and she accepts when he invites her and Michael to Neverland. The island, however, is not exactly the Merfolk-inhabited wonderland Peter promised.
Smith restores Peter Pan to his original depiction as a vain, capricious bully capable of both charming and terrorizing others, but she treats him with some compassion as well. Her adept use of a charming, third-person omniscient voice similar to Barrie's style lightens this ambitious excavation of Peter Pan's racist leanings. Wendy and Lily are flawed yet eminently competent heroines, and their empathy provides an excellent foil for Peter's narrow-minded worldview. Any reader looking for a brilliant, suspenseful fantasy adventure should find Sisters of the Neversea thrilling and tremendously fun. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth experience manager, Dayton Metro Library