A fantasy is something created out of the imagination and may be a daydream, painting, a story or a poem. James Britton, in his article on the role of fantasy, suggests it is located in ‘a third area’ between external reality and the inner world of necessity. The child who can inhabit this ‘third area’ can handle images as play. You need to read this rewarding but quite challenging article yourself. It is worth the effort – not least because it argues for the value of children’s play. It suggests that a very young child who can live creatively through play is likely later to be able to enjoy and take part in all the richness of the cultural world including literature, music and art (Britton, 1971).
One of the activities which provides the space for playing with images in school is of course the enjoyment of books and the stories children tell and write. In children’s literature ‘fantasy’ is a category often contrasted with ‘realism’ which is to do with what has happened or what at least could happen without coming into conflict with the laws of nature.
Some of the finest children’s books from the middle of nineteenth century onwards belong to the literary genre called ‘fantasy’. Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies (1863), Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories (1865), J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937), C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books (1950), Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden (1958) and more recently J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books of the 1990s and early 2000s, and David Almond’s Skellig. Writing about the Alice books, Victor Watson considers they established new possibilities for children’s books by creating an imaginative space for writing about the dynamics between adults and children – ‘dynamics that might be complex, loving, intimate or problematical, but were no longer just authoritarian’ (Styles et al., 1992, p. 18). I recommend John Rowe Townsend’s book Written for Children if you want to find out more about fantasy literature for children through history: chapters on fantasy thread through the book under chapter titles like ‘The never-lands’, ‘Fantasy between the wars’ and ‘Modern fantasy’.
Fantasy can transform the everyday world, as in Philippa Pearce’s classic, Tom’s Midnight Garden (Smith, 2004).
Perhaps other fantasies also create the space to think about ideas in an uninhibited way and allow us to experiment with notions unrestrained by the normal rules of time and space. Some books seem to invite the question ‘What would happen if – I was very small, very large, I could fly or if I had a magic finger?’ I have found children are intrigued by Roald Dahl’s short story The Magic Finger (Puffin, 1979). The girl in the story uses her magic finger to punish those who annoy her. Children, often powerless in real life, find this satisfying.
The modern picture book is an ideal vehicle for fantasy as the illustrations can provide a second narrative which may complement, extend or even contradict the written text. The idea of a magic implement comes into some of Anthony Browne’s books. In Bear Hunt (1979), Bear escapes from hunters in the jungle by drawing himself out of trouble with his magic pencil. Children learn how to read a fantasy book by reading with an adult and interpreting the features of the genre. Use of certain symbols in the illustrations may have a special cultural meaning (Tyrrell, 2003).
My students and I find that even children not normally eager to write, enjoy writing their own stories about having a magic pencil or finger. By inviting this kind of story we are giving children the opportunity of playing with ideas in a highly satisfying way. If we want children’s imaginative powers to grow we have to help them exercise them. Children’s thoughts flow easily from fact to fiction and this is reflected by a category of books called, rather inelegantly, ‘faction’ whose main function may be informational but which may also feature storybook elements like talking animals. Many of these books, like the Macdonald Young Books Bees series, are for younger children. But there are books for older primary children of this type as well, for example Ted Dewan’s The Weatherbirds (Viking, 2000) in which a stork, a parrot, a sparrow, a goose and a dodo undertake an exhilarating journey through the weather of the world. Different weather systems are clearly described and there are wonderful illustrations, including a panorama of New York at sunset. The fantasy elements will not be liked by everyone – some may think they risk ‘genre confusion’ – but I find that children enjoy the humour.
Britton, James (1971) ‘The third area where we are more ourselves: the role of fantasy’ English in Education 5 (3), (reprinted in The Cool Web Meek, M. et al.).
Smith, L. (2004) ‘Domestic fantasy: Real gardens with imaginary toads’ in Hunt, P. International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, Volume 1, London and New York: Routledge.
Styles, Morag, Bearne, Eve and Watson, Victor (eds) (1992) After Alice: exploring children’s literature London: Cassell.
Townsend, John Rowe (1995) Written for Children London: Cassell.
Tyrrell, J. (2003) The Power of Fantasy in Early Learning. London: Routledge.
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