Imaginative Worlds: reading informational text; Peter Pan through the Ages 5

Peter Pan Through the Ages

1. What do you think of when you hear the name Peter Pan?
2. Does your mind conjure up a vivid image of a young, happy boy dressed in shades of green—from feather-tipped cap to pointed shoes? Do you imagine him flying jubilantly alongside Tinker Bell or flirting with mermaids in the Enchanted Lagoon? Or maybe you picture Peter courageously battling with Captain Hook.
3. When people today think of Peter Pan, they mostly think of the cartoon Disney version. But the Disney version of Peter is very different from the original one created by Scottish writer J.M. Barrie back in 1902. Barrie first introduced Peter as the main character in his novel The Little White Bird; in that story, Peter had a dark, haunting side to him. Then, in 1904, Barrie wrote a play based on his novel—and there were a couple of things that might surprise you about how Peter looked on the stage in the early 20th century. First, Peter’s clothes were brown, tan, or rust-colored, not green. Second, the character of Peter Pan was always played by a woman. Even today, many theatrical productions still cast women to play Peter.
4. Barrie didn’t have just one version of the Peter Pan story—he made changes along the way. For example, he learned that children were copying Peter Pan, and trying to jump out of their beds to fly. Some of them were getting badly injured! So Barrie added the rule that in order to fly, you had to have fairy (or pixie) dust blown on you first. By adding this rule, J.M. Barrie was trying to help children understand that flying is magical, so that they wouldn’t try to do it themselves and get hurt.
5. While J.M. Barrie was the original creator of Peter Pan, another man named Walt Disney had a big influence on how we think of the character of Peter. As a child, Walt was fascinated with Peter Pan and his story. When his school put on the play, the young Disney played the lead role of Peter Pan himself. Walt’s brother, Roy, helped him fly by using a rope to lift Walt up and move him through the air—along with the pixie dust, of course!
6. When Disney grew up, he started an animation studio and made movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Dumbo. Disney still loved the story of Peter Pan, and he knew he wanted to make a movie of that too. But he also felt that he needed to make some changes to the story and characters. So he altered Peter Pan’s character a little bit to better fit the tastes of American audiences. He kept Peter as the same young boy, but made him a little more charming, a little more mischievous, and a little more playful. In 1953, Disney’s Peter Pan was released.
7. The extraordinary thing about fantasy is that anything can be imagined. Things that are impossible can become possible. Things that are unlikely can become likely. Things that are created by one person can be shared or changed by another person. J.M. Barrie strode into the literary world with the character of Peter Pan. Walt Disney took that same character and made him his own. The two versions have some things in common, and some things that are different: but they’re both Peter Pan.