On the difference between fantasy and imagination and what young children should read (and even write):<\/p>\n
Creative Imagination is thus the foe and antidote to fantasy -a truth \t\trecognised by psychologists in practice, but frequently obscured in their \t\twritings by a muddled use of the two terms as though they were interchangeable. \t\tEvidence of a habit of fantasy in a child is no proof of creative impulse: on \t\tthe contrary. The child who relates his fantasied adventures as though they \t\twere fact is about as far removed from creativeness as he can possibly be; \t\tthese dreamy little liars grow up (if into nothing worse) into the feeble \t\tlittle half-baked poets who are the irritation and despair of the true makers. \t\tThe child who is creative tells himself stories, as they do, but objectively; \t\tthese usually centre about some hero of tale or history, and are never confused \t\tin his mind with the ordinary day-dreams in which he sees himself riding \t\trough-shod over the grown-ups or rescuing beloved prefects from burning \t\tbuildings. Even if he does dramatise himself, and make “the bard the hero of \t\tthe story”, this is pure dramatisation, and can be carried on parallel with his \t\tconsciousness of real life, without ever at any point meeting it.<\/p>\n
It is not \t\tthat the one kind of fancy develops into the other; they are completely and \t\tconsciously independent. Accordingly, the first literary efforts of the \t\tgenuinely creative commonly deal, in a highly imitative manner, with subjects \t\tof which the infant author knows absolutely nothing, such as piracy, \t\tsubmarines, snake-infested swamps, or the love-affairs of romantic noblemen. \t\tThe well – meant exhortations of parents and teachers to “write about something \t\tyou really know about” should be (and will be) firmly ignored by the young \t\tcreator as yet another instance of the hopeless stupidity of the adult mind.<\/strong> Later in life, and with increased practice in creation, the drive outward \t\tbecomes so strong that the writer’s whole personal experience can be seen by \t\thim objectively as the material for his work.<\/p>\n
-Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, Ch.9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n