Audiobook: Lily Collins Reads Peter Pan

For more than a century James M. Barrie’s story of the boy who would not grow up has been enchanting families as a play, several theatrical musicals, and in many different television and movie versions. Now the Peter Pan novel by Barrie is available from Audible as an audiobook, beautifully read by one of my favorite young actresses, Lily Collins (“Mirror Mirror,” “The Blind Side”). Peter Pan is the title character, and Collins does a wonderful job with everyone in the story, including Captain Hook. But having her tell the story subtly reminds us that Wendy (a name Barrie invented, by the way) is the one who really sees and understands what is happening and learning what she needs to know to do what Peter won’t do — grow up. The novel has much more detail than the familiar play and movie versions and lets us hear the story as Barrie imagined it and as he told it to the young boys he befriended and who inspired it.  Play this one in the car and you’ll find yourself coming home the long way so you can keep listening.