It’s a Pan-demic

Well, there’s a way to cut into some fanfare. The folks at Great Ormond Street Hospital, who hold the rights to JM Barrie’s classic tale, had gone through all the trouble of commissioning a sequel from Geraldine McCaughrean (of which the title is unveiled tomorrow) when they found out about Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson’s PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS, which has been out for ages already, and got rather irritated about the whole business. Why? No royalties, of course:

Barry added: “We became pretty sensitive about it. We visited Great Ormond Street Hospital when we were in England to do research for the next book and we saw the tremendous need for funds.” They plan to bring their celebrity band to the UK for a fund-raising concert in a bid to help.

But a hospital spokeswoman said the McCaughrean book was the only officially sanctioned title. “We urge anybody who’s interested in reading a good book to buy our sequel,” she said.

Still, sympathies have to be pretty muted since STARCATCHERS was originally published last year and the whole “Next Peter Pan” thing was announced a little less than a year ago, so the surprise factor seems a bit high…

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