We now come to the second element we should seek in material, namely,
the element of the unusual, which we have already anticipated in the
story of the "Tin Soldier."

This element is necessary in response to the demand of the child who
expressed the needs of his fellow-playmates when he said: "I want to
go to the place where the shadows are real." This is the true
definition of "faerie" lands and is the first sign of real mental
development in the child when he is no longer content with the stories
of his own little deeds and experiences, when his ear begins to
appreciate sounds different from the words in his own everyday
language, and when he begins to separate his own personality from the
action of the story.

George Goschen says:

"What I want for the young are books and stories which do not simply
deal with our daily life. I like the fancy even of little children to
have some larger food than images of their own little lives, and I
confess I am sorry for the children whose imaginations are not
sometimes stimulated by beautiful fairy tales which carry them to
worlds different from those in which their future will be passed. . . .
I hold that what removes them more or less from their daily life is
better than what reminds them of it at every step."[22]

It is because of the great value of leading children to something
beyond the limited circle of their own lives that I deplore the
twaddling boarding-school stories written for girls and the
artificially prepared public school stories for boys. Why not give
them the dramatic interest of a larger stage? No account of a cricket