Bibliofemme News
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20/08/2004
Hospital challenges writers to pen Peter Pan sequel
The three leading storytellers in Britain's current golden age of children's fiction are expected to balk at a challenge made to them today - to embark on the "awfully big adventure" of writing a sequel to Peter Pan which proves as long-lived as the original.
The invitation comes from Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London, to which JM Barrie left the lucrative copyright of his stage play.
To mark its centenary in December - and to help it continue to buy state of the art technology to treat its acutely ill children - the hospital trustees are launching a search for "a magical sequel to JM Barrie's timeless masterpiece".
The trustees aim to commission a new story which will "share the same enchanting characters as the original, the same longevity, and be just as valid in a hundred years as the original is today". They are eager for one or more of today's leading children's writers to enter for the project.
"There are some brilliant authors around at the moment," Jane Collins, the hospital's chief executive, said yesterday, "I don't know if they will agree to try or not. I have no reason to think that they will. But, gosh, it would be fantastic if they did."
Yesterday the first reaction from two of the three most popular writers, Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson, was to make clear to the Guardian that they would decline.
However, they said they wished the hospital well.
JK Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, is on holiday and "too busy writing to comment", her spokesman said. She is committed to finishing the Potter series.
But other English-language writers - of any nationality - can hope for a degree of cash and prestige if they accept Great Ormond Street's financial terms, keep to its brisk timetable and win the commission.
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