Peter Pan was eternally young having exciting adventures without the responsibilities of adulthood. Most children, arguably, follow Peter's escapades in "Neverland" and his time with Wendy, John and Michael Darling. Peter was always dueling with his arch enemy, Captain Hook. Why is that? There are two sides to every story. "Hook's Tale" explains Hook's side, how a friendship turned into a longstanding rivalry.

James' father, a Commander in The Royal Navy, was lost at sea. After the death of his mother, James (aka Hook) was orphaned. His Kensington home sold, he was permitted to claim his clothing and anything he could carry. He chose his mother's wedding ring and "History of the Voyages of Captain James Cook". Directionless and wandering, James found himself pressed into service in the Royal Navy as a cabin boy. Examining a loose corner in the binding of his father's book, a piece of sailcloth with a rendering of a treasure map was revealed. Knowledge of a treasure map led to mutiny aboard the ship.

Cabin boy James made a grievous error costing numerous lives. Sentenced to a Viking burial, he was rescued from "his burning house" by Peter Pan. Peter and James become fast friends, that is, until they were not! James continued to seek the buried treasure puzzled by a Latin phrase on his father's map that said "second star to the right". On this archipelago,"The Never-Isles", the sun spun backwards and whoever lived there never aged.

"Hook's Tale: Being the Account of an Unjustly Villainized Pirate Written by Himself" by John Leonard Pielmeier shows the sensitive side of the orphaned James. Poor, often bullied, then pressed into naval service made for a difficult upbringing.

As a member of an elementary school musical ensemble performing the show "Peter Pan", I became a Captain Hook aficionado. I was impressed and entertained by author Pielmeier's alternate version of a seemingly sensitive, often misunderstood adversary of Peter Pan. A fun read.....ahoy mates!

Thank you Scribner and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Hook's Tale".

I'm a sucker for Peter Pan retellings, so I was super excited to be approved for this book -- I haven't read any novels about Hook, so it's a new, interesting take on the typical Peter Pan fairy tale.

I enjoyed learning about Hook's backstory and general history; it was interesting to have the idea of an innocent Hook put into a 19th-century England. My favorite parts were being able to get a different perspective about his story in general, with the pirates and the crocodile; I especially enjoyed the conflicts with Hook's father and how his father was the one who led him to Neverland in the first place. Seeing Neverland and Peter Pan himself viewed through a different perspective was also really fun. It's not as dark as the TV show Once Upon a Time made the Peter Pan story, but it's different, which is what I look for in retellings.

With that said, I do feel like the story is lacking *something.* The writing style wasn't my favorite; it leaned too heavily on cliffhangers where Hook would say something foreboding about the future and then we'd get a chapter break. While this is a fun technique when used sparingly, I feel like it happened almost every chapter break, which I was not a fan of. And while I understand it's Hook's memoir, I wish there were more about the overall Neverland legend and more story building in general rather than Hook's reminiscences. There's also a surprising amount of references to sex. While I understand he's a teenage boy, I'm not sure what Hook having a wet dream or him obsessing over a mermaid with large boobs really added to the story. Instead of that, I wanted more adventure or maybe even just more worldbuilding regarding Neverland itself.

Regardless of the weaknesses, I think it's an interesting book that some might enjoy. The ending is the strongest part of the book, and it was interesting to see how it was ultimately Hook's responsibility for Peter finding the Darlings and for Peter's general shenanigans in London. Overall, I thought it was interesting, but it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be. Some of the more interesting things were glossed over and some uninteresting things were given way too much page time. Check it out if you're intrigued, but it's not a must-read.

Hook was always my favorite character in Peter Pan so I was excited to read this! I enjoyed hearing Hook's side of the story and it made me like him more. In this book Peter takes more of a villain role which in a way he is compared to Hook. This book also addresses how Hook came to Neverland a question I was always asking myself. This book is a must read if you are curious to know the real story of Hook.

This was just an absolutely fun book. I will definitely be recommending it to my library patrons and I imagine it'll be on many ~top beach reads~ lists this summer. John Leonard Pielmeier has a real knack for setting up a story and I'll be on the lookout for more of his work.

And I always knew that Pan guy was shady.

Who is Captain Hook? Where did he come from? This book seeks to answer your questions!

Hook’s Tale was hard for me to get into because of the way that it is written, frilly and long winded like Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe, which is fine because some people like that but for me it’s hard to pay attention. If you can hang in there for the first 75 pages or so you are in for a real treat though because the story itself is very cleverly woven around the things we already know about Captain Hook.

One thing I enjoyed about the story was that Neverland was actually a “bermuda triangle” of sorts, where ships would sail in on accident and then couldn’t find their way out again. The mystery of the slowed aging was also an excellent aspect of the book. Ok, cool, no more sailing into outer-space on a pirate ship, I dig.

The characters themselves are expertly written, building on what Barrie had written already and adding to what may have made them, them. Peter is a child obviously, always living in the moment as we know that children do. ‘Yesterday’ could be the day before or years ago, ‘tomorrow’ having the same span of time. I loved the dynamics with the indians and the mermaids.

This book is all about the imagery so there are long passages of description, clothing, scenery, ships rigging, lots of time spent describing, especially in the first 20% of the book or so. Once the characters arrive in Neverland there is much more action and less narration happening which is great for the story. Even though I haven’t read it, it is how I would imagine the real Peter Pan story would be written, which is great.

I think this story is exactly what a young adult or adult reader would crave to read when they wanted to further explore Neverland and how the story that we know with Wendy began.

If you’re a fan of Gregory Maguire then you should like what John Leonard Pielmeier did for the infamous Captain Hook AKA Captain James Cook. I was curious to see what he could do with a man who has always been depicted as a bit psychopathic but this author wanted to show his ‘softer side’. I figured it had to be interesting after the TV show Once Upon a Time on ABC turned Peter Pan into an evil antisocial villain.

I liked that Pielmeier wrote it in first person so we get James’ story through his own eyes so to speak. One of the nice things also about the way he started this is that you get to see his beginnings and remember even the most ‘evil’ of us started out as innocent children before circumstances turned them into the villain of stories.

James is not only portrayed as someone with a seemingly normal, healthy (for the era at least) upbringing but also quite intelligent and with a loquacious vocabulary which would make sense because despite how Disney portrays his role, to captain a ship of the type he did takes complex cognitive skills.

You can see the first stirrings in his psychological development begin to change when he became an orphan, essentially homeless, most of his belongings taken away, then finally became the target of bullying. All of which would of course leave permanent scarring on even the strongest of us.

The elements of Peter Pan’s story we’ve all come to know such as The Mermaid’s Lagoon, Tink, the Jolly Roger, Smee, Tiger Lily and more but the perspective obviously is different. It’s a very adult way of looking at the childhood classic which of course it would be considering how Hook fit into the story in the first place. There were moments you had to feel for Hook such as when he found his boyhood shadow and felt a little tug at your heart knowing he’s right that at some point we outgrow our childhood. Others when he seemed to blame himself for Pan’s inability to stop committing felony kidnapping, at least that was how Hook viewed his actions.

I found Pielmeier’s character development and implied psychoanalysis of Hook interesting as you get to see how he was formed into the man who would one day be an infamous captain. The dialogue felt realistic for the piece, the plotline ran smoothly and there was a fun “Where’s Waldo” like feel whenever familiar places, people and events popped up.

Since we’ve always seen what Peter Pan was doing, reading this aspect we get to imagine what Hook was doing when Pan wasn’t around. It’s not like he just sat on his ship nearby waiting for Pan to give his life meaning. Just like in ABC’s version, Pan comes off not so much as the quintessential hero but as an equally flawed character who from the Captain’s point of view was not a saint to be worshipped but a sinner who should face the consequences of his actions.

If you’ve ever been interested in an alternate view of the classic stories we grew up with then you should check this out and let Hook be your guide to where time stops.