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Secret Spaces: Creating an Aesthetic of Imaginative Play in Australian Picture Books

2003; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 27; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/uni.2003.0019

1080-6563

Kerry Mallan,

Architecture and Cultural Influences

It would seem, at least to the adult mind, that childhood is a time of secrets. Children's secrets are not necessarily the kind that adults harbor. A particular kind of childhood secret involves those ubiquitous private places that Patricia Wrightson recalls in the above epigraph: places in which to hide, bury treasure, engage in storytelling and imaginative play. There are also other secluded places that offer spaces for quiet reflection, a social space for meeting with friends, or a refuge and shelter from the pressures of life. Cubby holes, treehouses, tunnels, caves, hideouts, even wardrobes are the kinds of secret spaces children seek or create. Other seemingly ordinary objects contain secret compartments—a box with a false bottom, a chest with a secret drawer. Or, they may provide the means for making a hiding place—the cavelike enclosure created by a blanket strung between trees or flung over a table, the dark space under a bed, a cool underworld that beckons from under a house perched on high stumps.