Peter Pan and the Contemporary Adolescent Novel

Many contemporary adolescent novels deal with the passage from innocence to maturity. J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan is relevant to the study and teaching of such novels because it too deals with the loss that maturity brings, but, unlike many contemporary novels, it also offers a consolation for that loss. The presence or absence of such consolation is one criterion by which contemporary adolescent fiction may usefully be judged.