Peter and the Starcatchers

Book Review on Peter and the Starcatchers
Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, is a fictional book.
A young orphan boy, named Peter, gets on a ship, called the Neverland, and meets Mary, a first-class citizen who is a Starcatcher. She says she's on her way to Rundoon, a country ruled by one of the Others. An Other is a person who wants the starstuff so they can use it for evil. Any one who obtains starstuff, good or bad, will be "rewarded" with magical powers, like flying or reading minds. Eventually this obsession with wanting to have more power will turn the possessor evil. Anything can possess starstuff. Creatures like the Loch Ness monster and mermaids were created by starstuff. On the Neverland, a trunk containing the most starstuff to ever fall to earth is being well-guarded by a crew member named Slank. He's one of the Others who work for King Zaborf III, the ruler of Rundoon. The pirates, led by the notorious Black Stache, are fully aware that there is some sort of super important treasure on a ship going to Rundoon, but they believe it is on the Wasp, the other ship that has a trunk, similar to the one on the Neverland. This causes the pirates to attack the Wasp, but find nothing there. They then attack the Neverland. When they attack, Peter and Mary throw the trunk overboard. Peter and Mary fly away to an island, where the come face to face with danger. An Indian tribe tells the new visitors about their disturbing past and about Mr. Grin, their giant pet alligator who devours whoever lands on the island. In order to find out what happens next, you'll have to read the book.
This was not my favorite book, but very good. I think it is suited for those who are ten years old and up.

My son did not like to read until I got this series. Now he can't put books down!

I shared the series with our kids, (5,7 &9). There were bits that caused all three to sit on my lap but they wouldn't let me stop reading. The whole series is well written and thought through. It engaged the kids from page 1 to very last paragraph. "Keep reading!" That's all I heard for all three books. Bravo, Mr. Barry & Mr. Pearson! It's having books like these published that keeps kids imaginations alive and well. My thanks!

I purchased this book to read with my 9 and 15 year old boys this summer. Between vacations, sleepovers, and then back to school, we never finished it. But believing, as I do, that once you start a book YOU FINISH IT, I read it all the way through.
Being a 53 year old man, I understand this book was not written for me. In fact, due to the constant jumping back and forth between the three concurrent stories, in chapters that were often not more than a page or two, I felt like I was developing ADD from the read.
In my 53 year old self, I also bemoaned the lack of any internal dialogue, meaningful insight to the characters' motivations and intentions--in other words, no real character development. I also missed having the fine wordplay present in good literature.
Instead, this book has one clear goal--to tell an exciting, entirely plot driven story, with characters that kids would find fantastic, exercising powers that kids would find cool, in situations that kids would find strange and exotic.
In this goal, the book succeeded pretty well. The pacing is brisk, with the focus clearly and almost entirely on plot development. It was almost like a movie in words.
In conclusion, for me, this book is good, clean fun for kids--but hardly anything of the quality of, say, Harry Potter. Also, a Warning--to those who are reading this book looking for fidelity to the JM Barrie Peter Pan classic, forget it; there's really not more than just a nod to the original.

I got to page 54 I think and the scene described was shocking! I put the book down and have not finished it! For a youth reader book, this was very inappropriate!