That book was Peter and the Starcatchers, which became a bestseller. Saturday at Vero Beach Book Center (in the children’s store), 2145 Indian River Blvd., Vero Beach 77.We were both picturing a little book. Friday at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables 30. “Although he’s a good friend, and we often see each other.”ĭave Barry and Ridley Pearson will discuss and sign Peter and the Shadow Thieves at 7 p.m. This is just a ‘what if,’ one way you could tell how that story came about. “And then there are those who think it’s great. “There are those who, I’m sure, view it as a travesty that we messed with the story,” Barry says. So far, the Barrie estate - and Peter Pan literary scholars around the world - have given the Barry/Pearson project their blessing. Ridley and I have this expression we’ll use on each other as criticism: ‘Time-traveling hamsters.’ Bringing in something that won’t quite fit - even in a world with mermaids, there are some things you can’t do! And ‘time-traveling hamsters’ has become our code word for that.”
“There’s just no limit to what you can invent,” Barry enthuses. They collaborated via e-mail, each giddily advancing the story, holding one another at bay when plot twists got too bizarre. And we both have young kids, which keeps a lot of kid in you. We’re like Peter - we’re boys who never grew up. “I think both Dave and I are about 12 years old,” Pearson laughs.
“The whole ghost story thing, that’s been a lot of fun doing,” Barry explains.īarry, who lives in Miami, and Pearson, who has a ranch in Idaho, play rock ‘n’ roll moldy oldies together in the Rock Bottom Remainders, along with Amy Tan, Stephen King and other A-list scribes. The second book has more than a little of the dark side in it. In Shadow Thieves, the baddies get badder, the magic more complex. “When we got to page 400, we decided we’d better stop and think about doing additional books.” “The first book really went after ‘How many of these questions can we answer?’ - in what we thought would be a 150-page book,” says Pearson. The ensuing page-turning events include murderous pirates, Lost Boys, storms at sea, magic trunks, hungry crocodiles and sharp-toothed mermaids. Peter and the Starcatchers envisions Peter as a London orphan, sold into slavery aboard a merchant ship bound for a sinister South Seas port.
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