Wendy

Rating:
Summary: Not What It Should Have Been
Review: I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the enchantment of it, but I think the author could have done so much more with it. Most of the time it just seemed like a completely different novel whose charachters happened to have the same name as the Darlings. It dragged at times, but overall it was an OK book.

Rating:
Summary: Confusion
Review: i liked this book alot it is a very powerfull read. the author's style reallyu involes you. i didnt like the end that sugest peter was a dream version of thomas that the only thing that bugged me.

Rating:
Summary: Only the names are the same...
Review: I suppose this was meant to be a contribution to the current wave of "dark side of Peter Pan" fanfics, similar to "Lost Girls". It's fairly well written, has good period settings and vocabulary, and moves along nicely. However, Wallace has chosen to make the Darlings a dysfunctional family; she's exaggerated certain of the parents' character traits far beyond what Barrie intended. She also postulates a variety of precedental incidents which are, I suppose, meant to explain Wendy's later readiness to fly away with Peter Pan; a cruel nanny, a criminally irresponsible father, a suggestion of insanity in the family.

In other words, it's the old escapism chestnut; a desire to journey into magical worlds can't possibly just be a wish to see new things or to have adventures, it has to be because there is some condition in your everyday life that is hurting you intolerably. A major theme in Barrie's Peter Pan is that children can have perfectly happy home lives and still wish to fly away, just to see what's out there, confident in the belief that they can always come home, that Mother will leave a window open. Wallace completely ignores this concept.

It would have been better had the author used original characters. The family itself is realistic enough; some parents do (and did at that time) drink a lot, have affairs, spend money irresponsibly, look the other way when their children are being abused. Child abuse and neglect were as common in that period as they are today, particularly emotional neglect in the upper classes. Children need to read about other children who have been brutalised in various ways; it tells them they're not alone. But this is not Barrie's family. Sure, the 'real' Mr. and Mrs. Darling were a bit childish, but they were never cruel.

One of the most common problems with fan fiction is character consistency. Wallace has an interesting story, but she seems to have forgotten that in writing about established characters, it works best if you have them behave at least reasonably close to source. Pick up Barrie's "Peter Pan" after reading this, and try to connect the Darlings as he wrote them with the family Wallace portrays. Wallace tells a fairly good story of abuse, betrayal, courage and emotional survival; she should have done so without misusing one of the most beloved families in cihldren's literature.

Rating:
Summary: Whoa...
Review: If this was really the home life of the three Darling children, it's a wonder why they didn't stay with Peter Pan in Neverland. The "simple, happy" family Barrie makes a point of describing is nowhere to be found in this book. And that's a shame. Instead, Wendy finds out that Mr. Darling has been having an affair, while Mrs. Darling looks the other way when the children's nasty nanny resorts to abuse as means of discipline. Kudos to the author for her writing style and for coming up with an original idea (Wendy's life before meeting Peter) but it's too bad she didn't do a better job with it.

Rating:
Summary: A fine historical novel for young readers
Review: Karen Wallace's Wendy is a brilliantly-written book and an excellent read. In the best Shakespearean tradition, the author grounds her novel in an older, familiar work - J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan - but develops the basic elements of that novel in an original way, and explores some of its underlying concerns on another level altogether.

Most of us will remember from our own childhood that children are aware of far more than adults give them credit for. This is certainly the case in Wendy. As the title suggests, the world of Wendy is seen largely through Wendy's eyes. Anyone who has ever known - or for that matter been - a bright and sensitive young girl will recognize Wendy: perceptive, thoughtful, somewhat lonely. Her attachment to Nana (her dog and confidante), her attempt to make sense of seemingly bizarre adult behaviour, her strong feelings of responsibility for her younger siblings, her sense of what is right and wrong - all make her a realistic and appealing character to whom the reader becomes quite attached.

Childhood can, of course, be a difficult time, and the dark side of Edwardian family life appears in this novel. In the best fictional tradition of the young person finding his or her way in the world, Wendy and her brothers rely on themselves and on each other, as well as on various helpful and caring adults, to cope with their sometimes difficult life.

The novel is also very much about a young girl's growing awareness of the future choices awaiting her as a woman. These choices emerge clearly as the story evolves. Questions about what women can do and who women can be - raised naturally as an integral part of the narrative - are still relevant today for young girls.

The Peter Pan motif is brilliantly and lovingly woven into the novel in the person of a young artist, incapable of growing up, and fascinated by flying.

Wendy is hard to put down. The historical detail has been rendered meticulously, so that we really feel that we are in the rooms of the Darlings' house, in the streets of London, or in the English countryside, as the case may be. Not only is attention paid to the tiniest domestic details, but to the larger trends and movements of the day. The book shows us various attitudes to all kinds of contemporary issues, from the advent of the automobile to the suffragist movement.

I highly recommend Wendy for young readers. Adults will enjoy it as well. It is a pleasure to read such a carefully researched and written book. Wendy transports the reader into another era. It is a touching, engrossing, and both emotionally and intellectually satisfying book.

Rating:
Summary: A new turn to an old tale
Review: Short of the fact that this isn't the sort of fairytale story that most authors write for children, it is still a very enjoyable read. Karen Wallace does an excellent job in creating a very different mood for the Darling Children. She conveys a family life, which though contradictory to the original Peter Pan which describes a happy home, is quite possibly more accurate given the time and the circumstances of the Darling children.
As soon as you open the book and begin to read you find yourself captivated by Ms. Wallace's beautiful and fluid writing style. Wendy Darling's search for truth in her famiy becomes the reader's search.
Because of the subjects that this book covers, I think it a very appropriate book for young readers who find themselves in similar situations as the Darling children, and especially Wendy who whitnesses the events personally and battles herself inward. It will help those in the same situations cope better with the reality of their own inner struggles.
Overall, this book is really just a fantastic little treasure. I encourage anyone to read it, young and young at heart alike.