If We Hope To Live Not Just

A Child... Who Has Learned From Fairy Stories To Believe That What At First Seemed A Repulsive, Threatening Figure Can Magically Change Into A Most Helpful Friend Is Ready To Believe That A Strange Child Whom He Meets And Fears May Also Be Changed From A Menace Into A Desirable Companion.

The Ability To Read Becomes Devalued When What One Has Learned To Read Adds Nothing Of Importance To One's Life.

Although We Like To Think Of Young Children's Lives As Free Of Troubles, They Are In Fact Filled With Disappointment And Frustration. Children Wish For So Much, But Can Arrange So Little Of Their Own Lives, Which Are So Often Dominated By Adults Without Sympathy For The Children's Priorities. That Is Why Children Have A Much Greater Need For Daydreams Than Adults Do. And Because Their Lives Have Been Relatively Limited They Have A Greater Need For Material From Which To Form Daydreams.

The Question For The Child Is Not Do I Want To Be Good? But Whom Do I Want To Be Like?

From A Child's Play, We Can Gain Understanding Of How He Sees And Construes The World--what He Would Like It To Be, What His Concerns Are, What Problems Are Besetting Him.