Windows and mirrors: secret spaces in children's literature

摘要

This study examines eighteen novels of children's literature to explore how secret spaces affect the child characters that create them. The results indicate that story characters mirror their real-life counterparts in designing secret spaces to escape from problems in the real world while escaping to the possibilities of fantasy play. The results extend existing literature in many respects, highlighting the potential connection between the location of the secret space and the child's reason for creating it, and shedding new light on the transformative power of secret spaces to reconnect literally and metaphorically “orphaned” children with their communities and their own sense of personal power.