In this book, the author reveals the creative force of children's narrative imagination and shows how this develops through childhood. He provides a new and powerful understanding of the significance of narrative for children's intellectual growth and for learning and teaching. The book explores a series of real stories written by children between the ages of 5 and 15, and traces the growth of literary consciousness from the dawn of written narrative in the kindergarten, through the early years of schooling and on into adolescence. Each chapter opens with a story or stories, which the author then goes on to examine in detail, so that the book may be seen as both a select anthology of children's stories and as a critical account of children's narrative practice. Following the preface, Thinking about Children's Stories, this book contains the following chapters: (1) Conscious Creativity: Reflections on an Essay by Leo Tolstoy--"The Life of a Soldier's Wife" by Fedka, Age 11; (2) Origins of a Practice: A Five Year Old's Mythology--"Nine Stories" by Wally, Age 5; (3) Image and Text: Entering a Literary World--"The Poorly Mouse" by Jessica, Age 6; "The Little Girl Who Got Lost" by Melissa, Age 6; (4) Encoding the Marvellous: Narrative Thought at Nine Years Old--"Six Tales" by Lydia, Age 8-9; (5) Appropriating Trickster: The Story of Laura & The Workshop--"Upsetter Finds the Four Leaf Clover Circuit" by Laura, Age 9; (6) Into the Beyond: Imagination and Reality--"Three Tales of the Imagination" by Rebecca, Age 11 and Age 16; and (7) The Pedagogy of the Imagination--"Walking through the Wood" by Leo Tolstoy.