The future of childhood is often described in terms of utopian thinking. Here, the turn is towards dystopia as a fertile source of wild imaginings about the future. The dystopian literary fictions featured here act as a message and are projections of an uneasy future requiring a reader to see the present differently. Such projections make reading…

The practice of make-believe has traditionally been viewed as valuable by psychologists and philosophers more or less exclusively as a mechanism for social initiation, a tool for everyday problem solving, or a method for children to learn about adult responsibilities. This instrumentalist approach has influenced the development of a wide variety…

Like many a modern play theorist, both Mark Twain and Walt Disney were enchanted by the way children act out stories, in particular pirate tales. For both Twain and Disney, this fascination grew out of their small-town, midwestern boyhoods, where avid reading and fantasy play helped stave off boredom and fill emotional gaps for both of them. Even…

The authors use Noam Chomsky's theories about generative grammar to discuss the notion of linguistic creativity they believe lies at the core of storytelling as Salman Rushdie pictures it in his novel, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories." The production of meaning through the use of narrative helps explain the rules of the literary game,…

Before children learn to read, they act like readers when they play with materials and objects like readers. In play, children beam their projective imagination upon inert material things and animate them with fantasy, infusing objects with meaning. The question of "the real" haunts the psychology of play and through play, the theory of fantasy:…

Vivian Gussin Paley is a teacher, writer, lecturer, and advocate for the importance of play for young children. Author of a dozen books about children learning through play, she has received numerous honors and awards including an Erickson Institute Award for Service to Children, a MacArthur Foundation Fellows award, and a John Dewey Society's…

Author describes the experiences and inspiration that led her to write about the Pilgrims. (ARH)

Describes the vision that prompted the author to place the characters of her prize-winning novel in a small West Virginia town--a place where love has no conditions on it. Thanks readers for sharing her vision. (ARH)

Writer of fantasy novels discusses the origins of her heroines and characterizes them as strong, passionate women who determine their own fate. (ARH)

This book contains comments by ten authors of children's literature concerning the influences they feel account for the particular qualities that define their books and about creative writing and children's literature in general. In the first article, P. L. Travers stresses the importance of fairy tales, myths, and legends in shaping her work,…

A distinguished writer looks again at a favorite childhood hero--Robin Hood, a work written by Henry Gilbert. (HOD)

Reexamines Maurice Sendak's first children's book, published in 1956. Finds it to be filled with the characters, themes, and psychological concerns that were to become hallmarks of the writer-artist's mature works. (NKA)

This collection of 12 critical essays--written for teachers, librarians, students, and parents--comments on the style, characterization, sense of wonder, and sense of reality in children's books. Specific subjects covered are (1) the fantasy worlds of Andersen, Beatrix Potter, Walter de la Mare, C. S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, and J. R. R. Tolkien;…

This collection of 52 articles reprinted from the "Horn Book Magazine" (1949-66) is intended to stimulate discussion on all aspects of children's reading and children's books. The articles are collected under seven headings: "Inspiration--How It Comes;""Goals and Guidelines for Writers and Illustrators;""Re-creating Other Times;""The Matter of…