Dave Barry adds to Pirate Literature

[Hrothgar Addams]

Yarr!

Ye gotta check this out. Dave Barry, popularizer pf TLAPD has added this contribution to the mass of pirate literature.

www.peterandthestarcatchers.com.

email this print this

Posted on Sat, Aug. 28, 2004

I M A G E S

KIDS' BOOKS

Prequel to Peter Pan fills in blanks with fun

By SUE CORBETT

scorbett@herald.com

Two years ago, the thriller writer Ridley Pearson read Peter Pan to his daughter, a few chapters each night until the end, at which point Paige looked up with wide-eyed wonder and asked, ''But, Dad, how did Peter meet Captain Hook in the first place?''

''It was such an obvious question, my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe I'd never thought of it,'' Pearson recalled. ''Finally, I said, Paige, that's its own book. And I'm going to write it.''

But first Pearson was due in Miami to play with the Rockbottom Remainders, the band of writers that includes Stephen King, Amy Tan and other names from the bestseller list.

Normally, a detour to a Remainders gig would not help a writer get going on a new, ambitious project like writing a prequel to a children's classic, but sitting at the breakfast table with fellow guitarist Dave Barry, the conversation turned to current projects. Pearson told Barry about Paige's question and they started riffing. How can Peter Pan fly? Why doesn't he get old? What is the story with his missing shadow?

Barry remembers saying, ''That is a really cool idea,'' and being stunned when Ridley asked, ''You want to write it with me?''

Thus was cooked up an unlikely collaboration between two authors that has produced a thick, slick, compulsively readable yarn about how the Boy Who Never Grew Up came to stop growing.

With swashbuckling action, constant peril and lots of fun-to-mimic pirate talk -- ''HEAVE TO ON THE STIZZENS! FURL THE YARDARM!'' -- Peter and the Starcatchers (Hyperion, $17.99, ages 10 and up) is just the kind of book parents would enjoy reading, a few chapters at a time, to their kid. Some of the humor is, in fact, pitched directly at the adult reader -- even young listeners who know what a brassiere is may not understand why it's funny that the sails of the villain's ship resemble a huge, black, wind-filled bra -- but this is a book chockablock with funny bits and derring-do.

''I think we both wanted to leave a book or two behind that our kids could actually read,'' said Pearson, whose daughter, Paige, is now 7 and a big sister to Storey, 5. (And, yes, he gave them middle names they could use if they got tired of being Paige and Storey.) ''I mean, the things I write, I practically have to lock my books away so my kids can't see them.''

The story takes place on board the ship, Never Land, bound for Rundoon with Peter, four fellow orphans from St. Norbert's Home for Wayward Boys, and a closely guarded trunk full of ''starstuff,'' a magical substance with the power to make people fly or stop aging.

Naturally, the starstuff is stolen, first by a cretin named Slank, then by a nefarious pirate named Black Stache (named for his facial hair), then recovered by some vicious (but quite attractive) mermaids, and finally coveted by island natives who speak their own dialect, in addition to English and French. (Talking dolphins also play a crucial role in the plot. Hey, it's a fantasy.)

It's up to Peter to help the secret society called the Starcatchers -- led by a comely teen named Molly -- get the starstuff back.

Fans of J. M. Barrie's original (or the Disney movie) will recognize the mammoth reptile, here named ''Mister Grin,'' and learn the origins of Tinkerbell.

Ridley and Barry sold the book to Hyperion, the publishing arm of Disney, based on an outline and a few chapters. They co-wrote it by swapping chapters via e-mail.

''It was like Ping-Pong,'' Barry said. ''One of us would write a chapter and send it to the other, and he'd rework it -- and we were not shy about reworking the other guy's stuff -- and send it back.''

'We went back and forth four or five or six times until we both decided, 'OK, this chapter's ready,' '' Pearson said.

Their editor, whose actual real first name is -- improbably -- Wendy, received the book in installments.

''I would distribute what I had around the office and people were begging me for the rest,'' said Wendy Lefkon, editorial director at Disney Editions. ''They would actually get angry at me because I didn't have the rest. When the whole thing finally came in, it was a great relief.''

Even readers familiar with each writer's style may have trouble divining who wrote what. Barry says the wind-blown brassiere was Pearson's idea. Pearson says he wrote all the pirate scenes, but the dialogue -- ''KEELHAUL THE SCUPPERS!'' and ''CAST OFF THE AFT BINNACLE!'' -- sounds positively Barryesque.

''We finished it about six months ago and it's gotten to the point now where, honestly, I have trouble remembering who wrote what,'' Barry said.

Pearson says there's interest from both Hollywood and Broadway. (The original Peter Pan was a play, created for the London stage, before it became a book.) And there's a sequel to the prequel under way as well, which Pearson and Barry plan to write using the same e-mail swap method.

First, however, there are 18 cities to visit, beginning Sept. 11 with an appearance at Books & Books in Coral Gables and including a stop in Washington state on Sept. 19, which is, of course, National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Barry is prepared for that.

''I bought eye patches for the book tour,'' Barry said.

ON THE WEB

For more about Peter and the Starcatchers, visit www.peterandthestarcatchers.com.

MEET THE AUTHORS

[Capt Grey]

Very cool. And will be in the Los Angeles area the day the authors will be in Pasadena. I'll add it to my calendar.

Thanks for sharing, matey.