The Discus Thrower Meets Peter Pan : A Story of the New York City Parks

A charming fable for all ages, inspired by the true story of the restoration of two beloved statues in the New York City parks.

“An invitation to dream, and a reminder of public art’s ability to continually inspire and expand imaginations.” — Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and 108th mayor of New York City

“This book captures the enigmatic, cockeyed, only-in-New York charm of classics such as E. B. White’s Stuart Little and George Selden’s A Cricket in Times Square.” — Adrian Benepe, president, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and former New York City parks commissioner

In a cruel act of vandalism, Peter Pan has been ripped from his perch near Gracie Mansion and tossed in the East River. Rescued by police divers, he finds himself awaiting restoration in a storage facility on Randall’s Island. There, among the disused lampposts and flagpole finials, he meets another bronze statue — the Discus Thrower — who has been languishing in the storeroom for a quarter century with a missing arm and a missing discus. Will the mercurial Peter Pan and the stolid Discus Thrower be able to get along, and perhaps even learn something from each other? And can Peter and Tinkerbell help the Discus Thrower get restored and placed back on his pedestal, at long last?

This delightful work of fiction is based on the real-life restoration of Charles Andrew Hafner’s statue of Peter Pan (1928) in Charles Schurz Park and Kostas Dimitriadis’s Discus Thrower (1926) in Randall’s Island Park — a process that both the author and the illustrator had front-row seats to. New Yorkers of all ages will enjoy reading this fanciful tale and then going to visit the statues that inspired it.