Peter Pan retellings booklist

I love Peter Pan. I found the book back when I was in middle school, and read it so many times, and then watched both the Disney cartoon AND the Mary Martin version of the musical (apparently there’s a whole discussion whether the Mary Martin version or the Kathy Rigby version is better, I’m team Mary Martin because it’s what I grew up with). As I got older and with the relatively recent explosion of fantasy books I started finding Peter Pan retellings and buying them up to read. I was realizing as I’m reading the sequel of one Peter Pan retelling I found, and I’m leading a book quest of another Peter Pan retelling, that I might need to put together a Peter Pan retellings booklist, to add yet another cool booklist to my blog.

(there are so many affiliate links in here)

Favorite Peter Pan editions

Obviously, my favorite Peter Pan is my copy from my childhood, BUT there are some really cool new editions, and I have to admit I tend to randomly buy these because they’re cool.

• Annotated Peter Pan– this has background information, theories from various professors and generally some fun stuff, I have not fully read this one yet
• Peter Pan Minalima- apparently this is so out of print that Amazon can’t even figure out where it is, which is a shame because it’s gorgeous. Apparently, MinaLima books are a whole thing, and I just now realized I have two of her (????) books, and there are several others that intrigue me to get

My favorite Peter Pan retelling

Okay, this answer will probably change depending on which book I’ve read most recently, so I will put two books in here, both are part of series.

• Heirs of Neverland series (Dust and Shadow)- It’s a cool dual-point-of-view urban fantasy with a young girl who is trying to find her brother who claims he left with Peter Pan. Peter is trying to figure out how to fix Neverland that is broken. It alternates between Claire and Peter Pan, and I really love it.
• Tales of the Wendy (The Wendy, The Navigator, The Captain, and Tigerlilja)- I’m currently reading book 2, and book 3, The Captain, isn’t out yet. Tigerlilja is a prequel. It’s set in the 1700s and Wendy is an orphan who wants to be a sailor and in the army, but can’t because she’s a woman, and so she joins this secret group fighting the Everlost. It’s really interesting. I’m really curious because the series has some interesting ideas for the Lost Boys and Peter Pan, and I really want to learn what the story is. The writing style is very similar to J.M. Barrie

Peter Pan retellings I’ve read

This is an odd list, because I’m going to write down a book or book series, and then I’ll suddenly remember another one to list here.

• Peter and the Starcatchers– This is a prequel series, and I like the series but haven’t really reread it since I first read it. Vague idea of series, Peter is an orphan that gets caught up in a bigger story trying to protect the world
• Peter Pan in Scarlet– back in the early 2000s the hospital that owns the copyright for Peter Pan, in England, ran a competition to write a sequel to Peter Pan, and this was the result. It’s an interesting idea for sure, it takes place after World War 1, and everyone has grown up, but something has gone wrong in Neverland, and we need the Darling kids to become children again and figure out how to solve this
• Pirate Princess series (Hook’s Daughter)- This is a middle-grade book series, and I really enjoyed it. It is one of the books I have both in ebook and print because The Artist likes this series and she prefers print books. This is one of the Peter is a bad guy books, which if done well can be interesting. Hook’s daughter, wants to find out why her Dad is always disappearing and sneaks aboard his ship, that ends up in Neverland

Peter Pan retelling books on my to-read list

These are the retellings I’ve bought but haven’t read yet because they’re part of the series and I know if I start the series I will not get anything done until I finish the entire series.

I will also say, there are a lot of Peter Pan retellings coming out recently and some of them just look bad. Like, let me turn Peter Pan into an X-rated romance novel bad. Though I did, back in the dark days of the internet, accidentally read a Peter Pan/Tinkerbell slash fiction. That scarred me. Umm, it was not what I was expecting when I found a Peter Pan story.

So, this is not a definitive list, by any means.

• Straight on ’till Morning– this is part of a series of Twisted Retellings from Disney, what if Alice went instead of Peter, and I actually have two copies because two people gave it to me, knowing I like it. I keep forgetting to read it because it’s a paper copy
• Second Star to the Right– This is a seven-book series I picked up when it was on sale that I’m curious about, it was recommended to me by some people in a reading group I’m in. It looks like it’s a bit of a prequel series, and it looks like Peter is an adult, so I’m really curious about that.

I feel like there are more Peter Pan retellings that I have or have read, but I can’t find them among my bookshelves or my various ebooks.

I got to see this statue in person on my honeymoon, while this is not my picture, I’ve got a very similar picture.

More fun booklists and Peter Pan fun

• Peter Pan book club
• Cinderella Around the World booklist
• What to read after Harry Potter
• 5 Great Epic Fantasy reads

“Peter Pan Statue. Kensington Gardens” by amandabhslater is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.