Patti Smith has revealed an unfulfilled ambition is to write a children’s novel in the mould of Peter Pan – 40 years after she saw the statue of JM Barrie’s boy who never grows up on her first visit to London.

The 63-year-old American singer is to pay a nostalgic visit to the Peter Pan statue while in London for her Serpentine Sessions concerts in Hyde Park tonight.

She was introduced to the statue by her then partner, the writer and actor Sam Shepard, when she did her first poetry reading in London at the age of 23. This was before the release of her first album, Horses, in 1975.

"He took me to see it because Peter Pan is one of my favourite characters in literature and I always visit it when I’m over," she said.

Her thoughts have turned to writing her own story for posterity after the success of her memoir, Just Kids. "It has inspired me to keep writing," she said.

She has a sequel planned and a book of travels but her ambition is to write a children’s classic. "I want to write a book like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland or Pinocchio, a classic like the books I loved. That’s my life goal."

She said London was always one of her favourite places to perform, partly because it was "where my band got our first big reception" and partly for the history and the "unbelievable" parks.

"For me there’s so much history and literature and poetry and theatre – William Blake’s grave and Keats’s house and Dickens’s house. I just have a great fondness for London."

America was not as good as Britain at preserving its cultural history, she said. "Every great city is being built up and the history destroyed but London has preserved a sense of continuity."

And Smith is looking forward to the Serpentine Sessions: "I know Paul McCartney is playing [at Hard Rock Calling] to perhaps 100,000 people which is very exciting, but I like festivals that are a bit smaller, where I can get a sense of the people I’m very happy at this time in my life that people still welcome me as a performer."

For more information on the Serpentine Sessions go to www.serpentinesessions.com