PETER AND THE SECRET OF RUNDOON

In this double-stranded, nearly nonstop close to the Starcatchers trilogy (at least its direct line; the authors are also producing spin-offs), peaceful Mollusk Island is overrun by savage invaders, while Peter, acerbic Tinkerbell and the Starcatchers are away in the North African land of Rundoon battling the darkness-loving Others. For one long pause, the reconstituted shadow-eater Lord Ombra stops to explain in great detail the Others’s scheme to rewind the entire universe back to its pre–Big Bang state, and to reveal that the fabulously valuable “starstuff” that falls to Earth occasionally is effluent from “a leak in the plumbing of the universe.” Otherwise, it’s all one grand and glorious string of captures, escapes and cliffhangers, with a large supporting cast featuring a flying camel, a giant snake, a mad Russian rocket scientist and lots of monkeys. In the end, all’s been set right and the main characters are, more or less, in place for the opening of Peter Pan, to which this has all been a prelude. Kudos to Barry and Pearson for a funny, clever, melodramatic romp. (Fantasy. 11-13)