Peter and Wendy

I think I might really love this book. When trying to get some homework done at Granny and Grampy's earlier this month, I searched out one of their copies and then Grampy and I had a bit of fun finding out just how much an early 1911 edition would be worth. (Answer: Wow.)
I read it to Granny in the hospital, and we both enjoyed that, I think. (Though I felt a bit self-conscious reading the passages about the "redskins" with one of Granny's fellow patients being a native man!)
Anyway, just now going through it for school again and trying to write an essay on the male and female roles throughout (Answer: men are big babies and women their mothers.) I was reading over movie quotes from Finding Neverland (which I loved before I'd read the book) and found this line:

Porthos dreams of being a bear, and you want to shatter those dreams by saying he's *just* a dog? What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That's like saying, "He can't climb that mountain, he's just a man", or "That's not a diamond, it's just a rock." Just.

It made me smile. And even more so, what I found in the front of my marked-up version of the tale that I'm using for references and the like:

In 1929 J.M. Barrie donated all rights in peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. In 1987, fifty years after Barrie's death, copyright expired under UK law. However, the following year a unique Act of Parliament restored royalty income from all versions of Peter Pan to the Hospital, which means that the very sick children there will continue to benefit from J. M. Barrie's generous gift for as long as the hospital exists.

If only for that, I would love this book - for what it inspires in our hearts and imaginations. After all, all it takes is hope and trust, and a little bit of pixie dust!