Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook by Christina Henry
Imagine
meeting a young boy with promises of an island where you will never grow up. Oh
the fun you could have, leaving the world you know to have adventures. Imagine
if the world you did know was one where you were unhappy, afraid, alone. Then
this island and this boy, Peter, would have everything you could ever want.
That was Jamie. He left the land he knew to follow Peter many, many seasons
ago. He was the first boy Peter had ever brought to the island. They were best
friends and they would never grow old. But as the seasons passed more boys
would come. When those boys died either in Battle, during a raid against the
pirates, from sickness or the Many-eyes, Peter would go back to the Other Place
to get other boys. Jamie would be the one to bury the bodies. He was also the one
that made sure the boys were taken care of, looked after, and while everyone
had fun, Jamie kept them safe. This is the story of Captain Hook, the boy once
known as Jamie, and how he went from being Peter Pan’s right hand to losing
his.
Jamie
is the narrator throughout Lost Boy
and he is nothing at all like the villain I remember. He is Peter’s best
friend, his favorite and the fiercest fighter that leaves his mark on pirates
by taking their right hand by their own sword. But he is also caring, thoughtful
and a fierce protector. Even though he is a child, he holds a certain maturity
that you would expect from someone older. Henry did an amazing job developing
his character and his voice. Through his eyes I learned of the other boys and
the truth of Peter, who is a brutal, uncaring child that feeds off violence and
parades it off as fun. All of the characters jumped off the page so well
developed it was almost frightening. And the island they lived on was full of a
certain mysticism where monsters roamed and secrets were hidden.
I’m a
sucker for anything Peter Pan. I fell in love with Disney’s version as a child,
loved “Hook” and even watched the short run cartoon show that ran in my
childhood. But I didn’t read the novel Peter Pan until I was an adult. I was
able to see in Peter Pan the things I wouldn’t have noticed if I read it as a
child. Like how Peter “took care of” the boys if they started to grow up. Or
what an extremely arrogant trickster he was. I felt bamboozled by the reality
of who Peter really was and honestly my opinion of a character I truly loved
changed dramatically. Henry’s novel about Captain Hook takes this image of
Peter Pan a step further. This novel is dark and brutal with amazing world and
character development. I lost myself in this story both horrified an amazed by
the lengths that Peter was willing to go to keep Jamie by his side. This is the
perfect prequel to Peter Pan and an
extremely fascinating background for Captain Hook. It’s easy to feel sympathy
for the man that would become Hook and see the cruelty of Peter. The clues were
left in Peter Pan that there was more
to the boy who would never grow up, something much darker and sinister. Henry
exposed all of that in Lost Boy. I
give this novel 5 out of 5 stars.
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