A couple of years ago, the trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London, who hold the copyright to Peter Pan, started looking for someone to write the official sequel to J.M. Barrie's timeless children's classic about the boy who never grew up. Award-winning English author Geraldine McCaughrean won the difficult task of taking up Barrie's pen and carrying on the adventures of Peter Pan. How does any writer approach a task as daunting as this? There are two ways forward: you either dish up more of the same or you bravely go off in a different direction and create something as unique as the original. McCaughrean has chosen the former. Peter Pan In Scarlet could just as easily have been called 'Return To Neverland'. McCaughrean has taken the obvious route of returning a bunch of Barrie's original characters to where they have been before. New adventures and adversaries await Wendy and her boys in Neverland, but it's all too familiar and close to the original to reach the heights of imagination that made Barrie's creation an essential children's classic. About 20 years have passed since Wendy, her brothers and the Lost Boys left Neverland to take up a normal life in London. Peter Pan has struggled alone to cope with the pressures of never growing up. Those who returned have become adults, but Peter has remained a boy. But suddenly, Wendy and the Lost Boys find their normal lives disrupted when they begin experiencing disturbing dreams that are leaking out of Neverland. Something is wrong, and they all come to the same conclusion. Peter Pan needs their help. Peter's former friends borrow their own children's clothes, get some fairy dust from Kensington Gardens, and fly off to help him whether he wants it or not. But Neverland is now a dismal place with all the colour gone, skeletons on the beach and Peter himself less than happy to see his friends return. What has caused these terrible changes in Neverland? There are dark and dangerous adventures ahead before the secret of the changes in Neverland are revealed. Geraldine McCaughrean's Peter Pan In Scarlet is as much a new adventure as a continuation of the original story. She is a witty and creative writer who mixes themes and loose ends from the original with entertaining ideas of her own. Her characterisation of new and old friends and foes is spot on and she never diverts from the feel and mood of the original. McCaughrean knows she is treading on hallowed ground and to take big risks would be dangerous. However, there is one vital ingredient missing from this worthy homage to J.M. Barrie. Where is the nightmarish villain that stalked the pages of Peter Pan and entered into every child's bad dreams? Captain Hook was a classic fearsome creation and there is nothing in Peter Pan In Scarlet to rival him. His spectre does till stalk Neverland, and McCaughrean tries to pull off a villainous sleight of hand towards the end of the story, but a new villain of his calibre would have livened up this solid and safely nostalgic sequel and made it really special. Peter Pan In Scarlet By Geraldine McCaughrean Published by Oxford ISBN 0 19 272620 X