The Bridge to Never Land (Starcatchers Series #5)

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

Overview

One summer morning while Aidan and Sarah are visiting their grandfather, they discover a secret compartment in his battered wooden desk. Inside is a yellowed envelope that contains a piece of very thin, almost translucent, white paper, on which, handwritten in black ink, are a series of seemingly random lines; among them are what appear to be fragments of letters, but not enough to make sense. At the bottom of the page is a verse about Peter Peter and a reference to a real hotel in London. As it happens, the family is about to embark on a trip to Europe, so the children decide that while in London, they will try to locate the hotel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781423163077
Publisher:	Disney Press
Publication date:	08/09/2011
Series:	Starcatchers Series , #5
Sold by:	DISNEY PUBLISHING WORLDWIDE -EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
Lexile:	640L (what's this?)
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of more than a dozen books, including Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far); The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog; Dave Barry's Money Secrets; and Big Trouble. Along with Ridley Pearson, he is the co-author of Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, Escape from the Carnivale, Cave of the Dark Wind, Blood Tide, and Science Fair.

Ridley Pearson, in addition to the Peter and the Starcatchers series with Dave Barry, is the award-winning author of Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark, Kingdom Keepers: Disney At Dawn, Kingdom Keepers: Disney in Shadow, Steel Trapp: The Challenge, and Steel Trapp: The Academy. He has also written more than twenty best-selling crime novels, including Killer View and Killer Weekend. He was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction at Oxford University.

Hometown:

Miami, Florida

Date of Birth:

July 3, 1947

Place of Birth:

Armonk, New York

Education:

B.A. in English, Haverford College, 1969

Website:

http://www.davebarry.com

Editorial Reviews

In the beginning, their attempts at decipherment are just a game. Aidan and Sarah Cooper just want to gain some small glimpse about the meaning of the ancient manuscript; but each piece of the puzzle leads them towards another, ever deeper into the document and the alluring dangerous story it conceals. A new take on the Peter Pan legend by the authors of Peter & The Star Catchers.

Pearson and Barry bring their Starcatchers series into the modern day, injecting it with a dose of metafiction in the process. Siblings Sarah and Aidan Cooper, ages 17 and 15, know all about Peter Pan's secret origin, having read the Starcatchers books when they were younger, but they never dreamed it could be real until they discover a riddle hidden in an old desk. Following the clues while on vacation in England, they find the last stash of magical starstuff on Earth, only to be stalked by the malevolent Lord Ombra. To protect themselves and keep the starstuff from Ombra, they track down the remnants of the Starcatchers and travel to Never Land, where they're swept up in the ongoing conflict between Peter Pan and Captain Hook. The book's joyful sense of adventure and wonder is tempered somewhat by the constant pursuit of authorities and parental figures, as well as scenes set in Disney World that seem to be designed to remind readers that runaway children are serious business in this day and age. Nonetheless, it's a worthy complement to the series. Ages 10–up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 5–8—In the authors' latest foray into Never Land, siblings Aidan and Sarah Cooper aren't expecting to discover a coded message in the hidden compartment of an antique desk. But once they crack the code, the teens find themselves on a journey into the books in the "Starcatchers" series (Hyperion), discovering that the stories are indeed real and that they must hurry to stop a golden box of starstuff from getting into the wrong hands. Along the way, they meet up with J.D. Aster, the reluctant descendant of Molly and Wendy Aster; narrowly escape the police; and set off an East Coast search for their whereabouts. This novel doesn't maintain the wonderful humor of the original series, and much of the story seems to be a setup for later installments. The kinetic journey seems far-fetched, even for this series, and the stop-and-go plot skips from one madcap escape to the next with little cohesion or true purpose. Aidan and Sarah also seem a bit immature for their ages. Hopefully the next book will provide the plot, humor, and character development that the authors are known for.—Necia Blundy, Marlborough Public Library, MA

School Library Journal

MacLeod Andrews’s narrative voice is soft and almost hypnotic at times as two teens discover that the stories in their classic Starcatchers books aren’t stories at all—they’re real. Andrews’s tone provides periodic breaks from dialogue that oscillates between excitement and anxiety as teen siblings Aidan and Sarah follow clues they find in a secret compartment. Modern technology influences their journey in interesting ways as they try to escape an amorphous evil. As their wild flight eventually lands Sarah in Peter Pan’s Never Land, Andrews rises to the challenge of re-creating well-known characters like Captain Hook, giving them recognizable voices while still delivering fresh performances. He fully develops every voice; even characters with the smallest appearance make an impression. A.M.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2012 - AudioFile