Taylor believes the creation of paracosms springs from children’s desire to inhabit an alternative to everyday life.
galaxy populated by few humans and many intelligent animals. Each girl invented her own planet where these creatures live, and the planets have shared enemies—bossy girls named Bow-Girl and Cutsie Doodle. In both cases, these imagined worlds were a center point of the children’s play for years. Both girls created art and written narratives about their paracosms, and one of the boys remarked that he thought about his world every day. Taylor believes the creation of paracosms springs from children’s desire to inhabit an alternative to everyday life. It is an impulse that leads kids to private spaces like forts and hideouts that are out of the view of adults. In the case of paracosms, however, the play is driven by imagination, and many children write histories of their imagined worlds or create artifacts like maps or flags. “Lots of kids engage in imaginative play based on books, movies, or television, but that’s not what we are talking about,” notes Taylor. “Paracosms are worlds that are original creations.” As the examples in the case study suggest, kids often will create individual worlds that are interconnected with those of their friends. Some kids involve their families in their paracosms, and enjoy collaborating with parents on stories about their worlds. Other children are more private about their creations, though they talk about them with friends. The case study mentions that when the children are overheard talking about things that happen in their invented worlds, it sounds as if they are discussing real events. While relatively few children create such detailed worlds and make them part of their lives over a long period of time, many kids have imaginary friends. Taylor has studied this topic extensively for more than 20 years. Her book, Imaginary Friends and the Children Who Create Them (Oxford University Press,
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