In an effort to keep him from handling the dangerous contents of the trunk, which, when their powers are described sound a lot like illegal drugs, Molly spills the beans in a very adult way, at one point asking him to, 'Bear with me a little longer. This is after he has discovered that the trunk contains something that can make rats fly. What are Starcatchers, Others and what's in those trunks? It's all laid out in a pretty pedestrian manner when Molly delivers and expository speech to Peter midway through the book. Slank is an Other and also after the contents of one of the trunks. Also on the Never Land is second in command, the captain seems addle brained, so really he's first in command, is the character with the most evocative (but of what?) name in the book, Slank. For safety, presumably, his daughter Molly and her governess, a woman with a name and personality straight out of one of Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants books, Mrs Bumbreak, are on board the Never Land. Leonard Aster, Starcatcher and guard to the contents of the trunk is on board the Wasp. Both ships have been loaded with mysterious trunks, one of which Black Stache, Hook's name before he loses his hand at the end of the book, is after. Leaving port at the same time is the fine sailing ship, the Wasp. We learn later that they are to be sold as slaves in this country. For reasons that are not mentioned, he and four other boys are being sent, by way of a ship named The Never Land, to the country of Rundoon. Not knowing his real age, he has a habit of claiming to be one year older than the oldest kid in the room. Peter is not the pleasure loving child who thinks he is the center of the universe, as Barrie's Pan is, but instead a boy who, by virtue of the fact that he can spit the farthest, is leader of his pack. It's unclear exactly when this story takes place, but there are carriages, not cars and ships, not airplanes to ferry people about. At the start of the story, the Peter of Peter and the Starcatchers is just a regular old orphan boy from St Norbert's Orphanage in London, however, over the course of the books his personality develops and changes due mainly to his exposure to starstuff. This collaboration is heavy with action and dialogue and light on description and character development and is made up of very short chapters that jump back and forth between characters more often than the trunk of starstuff in the story changes hands.

According to the authors, this series was conceived when, more than five years ago, after a bedtime reading of JM Barrie's book, Ridley Pearson's daughter asked him how Peter met Captain Hook.

Peter and the starcatchers series