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the Little White Bird
 The Little White Bird
J.M. Barrie wrote The Little White Bird - Adventures in Kensington Gardens in 1902, following his first meeting in Kensington Gardens with the Llewelyn-Davis boys. It's the story of a retired military man - loosely based on Barrie himself - and his friendship with a little boy, David. The Gentleman is a whimsical, lonely old bachelor, an author, whose ambition is to have a son. From his window table at his club, he watches the romantic progress of a young governess and her boyfriend, who meet every lunch time at the mailbox opposite. He secretly intervenes when they split-up and engineers a reunion which leads to their marriage. He follows them, unseen, to their home, and from then on, he becomes their 'unknown friend' helping the penniless couple, anonymously, when needed. He follows the birth of their son, David, from a distance, and as the boy grows up, he becomes a substitute for the son the narrator never had. He engineers a meeting with the boy through the child's nanny, who walks the boy in Kensington Gardens. Through their various meetings, the narrator invents many adventurous stories, including the character of Peter Pan, the first time the character appears in print and explains to David how all children were once birds; and that the reason there are bars on nursery windows is because very little people sometimes forget that they no longer have wings, and try to fly away away. He tells the story of how Peter Pan escaped from being a human when he was seven days old...and flew to Kensington Gardens - where he still lives, half-child and half-fairy, never growing any older. The narrator and David invent stories together about Peter and the fairies and Solomon Crow (who lives on an island in the middle of the Serpentine) which are dramatized within the framework of the growing relationship between the two and, eventually, the boys mother and father. Interwoven, we see David getting older. This story is sure to be a delight to young and old alike! This classic is 6 Discs, approximately 7 hours of listening. Narrated by Iris Carroll
 
Excerpt from The Little White Bird:
Chapter XIV
Peter Pan
If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child." and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, "What a foolish question to ask; certainly he did." Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
Of course, it also shows that Peter Pan is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age is one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one. The reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven days old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens.
If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows how completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David heard this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape, but I told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his temples and when he had done this hard, and even harder, he distinctly remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops, and with this memory came others, as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as soon as his mother was asleep and how she had once caught him half-way up the chimney. All children could have such recollections if they would press their hands hard to their temples, for, having been birds before they were human, they are naturally a little wild during the first few weeks, and very itchy at the shoulders where their wings used to be. So David tells me.
I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story: First, I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding being that it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with his additions, and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more his story or mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the bald narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine, though not all, for this boy can be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits about the ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences of David's, recalled by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking hard.
©2008 Classic Children's Tales. All rights reserved.
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