The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up

SPECIAL INSTALLMENT: CHRISTMAS EVE
Sir J.M. Barrie first brought the character Peter Pan to the stage 100 years ago in a play called The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. It’s about a boy trapped in his childhood, and reminds us that, truth be told, we’d prefer Jesus the same way.

December 1904. One hundred years ago.

Japan was beating up on Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. The World’s Fair was wrapping up in St. Louis, after a visit from President Theodore Roosevelt. The Wright Brothers’ flight, performed a year earlier, had not received much coverage, so people were still wondering if air travel would ever get off the ground.

Then, all of a sudden, a flying boy appears.

His name? Peter Pan.

In December 1904, this classic character pops up on a London stage in a play called Peter Pan, Or the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. The play is turned into a novel in 1911, and later an animated film, television musical and live-action movie. Peter invites a girl named Wendy to travel via fairy dust to Neverland, to be a mother to his gang of Lost Boys. Many adventures unfold, including battles with Peter’s archenemy Captain Hook, but in the end Wendy decides that the best place for her is back at home with her family.

Looking in on Wendy after her return,...