ABSTRACT
We have already considered the potential power of fiction to shape children's views and attitudes. We need also to keep in mind that fiction is not just that story that 3b is ‘doing’ or that is being read by teachers to the reception class. It is also the imaginative journey taken by the solitary child with her head in a book—in which she is guided by the author, and the author alone, and follows where the book leads. And it is the phrases and images that are left behind, either when that voyage has ended, or when the reader has opted out along the way because the book failed to hold her interest, which we cannot afford to ignore.
