About ReadMOre
ReadMOre is a "one-book" reading and discussion program organized annually by an ad hoc association of librarians and readers. The program originated in the St. Louis Metro area and is working toward statewide participation. Participants are engaged every year in selecting the title for the following year. The Missouri Humanities Council provides a web site and various other services to the association.
2008 Selection: The Starcatchers Trilogy
ReadMOre is promoting family participation in 2008. The completion of "The Starcatchers Trilogy" last fall provided the impetus for selecting all three books. Written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson as a "prequel" to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan story, these three books are page-turners much like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories. While written for the early teen reader, the books are enchanting for adult readers, too, with wry content here and there that the adult reader will appreciate!
Peter and the Starcatchers
Published in 2004, the first book in the trilogy has to establish a "cosmology" just as the Harry Potter stories did. Forces of Good and Evil must be invented, and cosmic mystery must be levened in so that there is something for Good and Evil to struggle over. In this invented world, select individuals and animals have special powers of communication. The object of the struggle of the forces of Good and Evil is an inexplicable substance called "Starstuff," which on direct exposure can be deadly to people. While there is no mention of religion in the story, and no religious point of view, anyone raised in the knowledge of Old Testament scriptures may find some reminders in the cosmology of this story.
Peter and the Shadow Thieves
In 2006, Dave and Ridley topped themselves with an even better, more chilling, adventure of Good versus Evil and an impossible but compelling Young Love. This story comes out of a literary world that is insanely attracted to the Harry Potter stories, and so the scary characters here are scary on the scale of J.K. Rowling's Death Eaters. It is a tribute to Barry and Pearson that their stories are decidedly NOT knock-offs of Harry Potter's world. This is an updated vision of J.M. Barrie's fantasy world, and all the more delightful for the reworking and amendment of Barrie's ideas. This on is no less impossible to set down.
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
The final installment in 2007 begins with a vision of the absolute persistence of Evil and a looming challenge to Good that may take the form of a "reversal" of the Big Bang inself. Barry and Pearson have had a good time along with the naming of things, and in this book their sport continues. An oversize Python named Kundalini, for instance. Isn't that a style of Yoga? An airborne sailing ship named De Vliegen. Type that in to Google and puzzle your way through a "nested joke" in the ship's name. This is a book that takes young love seriously. Anyone who was ever smitten at age 12 will feel a lump in the throat at the end of the story. Taken all together, the three books will provide lots of reading pleasure and much to talk about later.
