By Kimberly Inskeep, Taylor Potecha & Madeleine Hewitt
I’m delighted to feature a special guest on the Finding Foxtale blog: Taylor Potecha, the inspiring voice behind Cereal Digest, a newsletter devoted to nurturing wonder, creativity, and joy in everyday life. Taylor’s mission to spark childlike imagination aligns beautifully with our journey at Finding Foxtale to inspire children through curiosity, creativity, and connection.
Taylor sat down with Finding Foxtale Forest author Madeleine Hewitt to speak about how playing pretend prepares us as children for the adventures of adulthood. Their conversation dives into the heart of imagination and storytelling, themes that resonate deeply with both their audiences.
Madeleine Hewitt, Finding Foxtale Forest: Book One
As Madeleine prepares to release the second book in the Finding Foxtale Forest series, Taylor captures how enchanting stories can offer children a safe, but adventurous, playground where they can develop bravery and strengthen their dreams.
Finding Foxtale Forest: Book Two
I invite you to explore Taylor’s interview with Madeleine and celebrate the release of Finding Foxtale Forest: Book Two. Step into this whimsical world with us and reignite the power of imagination—for both children and the young at heart! You can follow Taylor @taylorpotecha.
Taylor Potecha
Imagine with me for a moment:
A forest bursting with ancient trees, concealing wise spirits and curious woodland creatures behind its branches.
A sprawling mountaintop castle flaunting turrets and secret passages, with a dragon's lair nestled in the cliffs.
A realm of floating islands hovering amidst swirling clouds, where sky ships sail and lost civilizations loom on the horizon.
These are the settings that comprised our childhoods, where imagination could transform us into brave heroes and wild adventurers. Playgrounds, basements, and backyards were free grounds for magic. The real world became bigger and brighter; siblings and friends became characters and creatures. Nothing was off limits. Everything was enchanted.
As a little girl, I was especially keen on being a fairy and subsequently turning all my friends into fairies. Certain scenarios would repeat themselves in my playing pretend: fairy dust to trick the menacing trolls, a wave of the wand to open a secret portal, and an enchanted flower to bring happiness to the wilting land.
If anything hinted of rowdy in the slightest, I would actually recoil from it. Capture-the-flag and dodgeball were particular abominations. I didn’t understand why other kids enjoyed that stuff—and then didn’t understand why I couldn’t enjoy that stuff. This perpetuated my fear of being odd or left out, which then perpetuated the playing pretend as a quick and surefire way to whisk these problems away. In the glittering meadows and groves of my fairy world, I was safe and I belonged. There was a role for me to play, there was a mission to protect, and there were allies along the way.
I recently had a conversation with Madeleine, author of the Finding Foxtale Forest series, which resurfaced these memories of playing pretend and raised questions about the role of stories and imagination in our young lives.
As an only child, Madeleine had a lot of space for her imagination. Her imaginary world of choice looked a little different from mine. Instead of fairy dust and silky wings, Madeleine’s world was rife with poison and dungeons and wicked witches. As a lover of adventure books, she would conjure up dire scenarios in which she played the key role of rescuer, slaying the danger. Branches became her bow and arrow for a savage hunt; a faint breeze revealed her secret power to command the wind; friends became fellow lions “rawr”ing in treacherous battle.
We both laugh as we resurface the silliness of it all and reflect on the possible reasons we created these stories.
“Kids know that the world is a dangerous place,” Madeleine says, “and I think they will pretend to prepare themselves. But it doesn't seem to scare them… Playing pretend is almost like this form of practice for the dangers of the real world.”
“Do you remember feeling afraid of something in the real world?” I ask.
“I think I saw people's dramas and emotional responses, and I remember thinking, ‘I don't ever want to react to something that way,’ or ‘I don't ever want to feel like that.’ Almost reverse engineering.”
She continues, “I think it was anger especially: other kids or teachers or parents just having intense, angry reactions to things. Luckily, I was never exposed to the kind of anger that a lot of kids are exposed to, but I somehow recognized when an adult was acting out of instinct. I don't know why I could pick up on that. But I think that almost planted a seed in me of, ‘Be ready. Be ready to have the same emotions but to deal with them in a different way.’
“And so maybe that’s what drew me to epic battles and struggles in my pretend worlds because there was this part of me that said, ‘Okay, when I grow up, I'm going to have to deal with big emotions. So let’s construct a scenario where I have big emotions and I come out on top.’”
There’s something so universally true in Madeleine’s experience. As children, emotional displays confuse us, and I wonder if we each develop a unique way of making them less threatening. For me, it was the whimsical beauty of wands, flowers, and magic to create immediate peace in the world. For Madeleine, it was the incredible strength of powers, weapons, and potions to triumph over evil. Both were tactics for preparing and tolerating perceived social dangers, which we couldn’t yet understand. Both provided us with a safer reality to explore and express big emotions in a controlled environment.
Pretend play is one of our earliest human experiences of framing the world in story. Whether we’re immersed in whimsical tales or dire adventures, stories offer us connection to the world.
I ask if there was someone in particular who nurtured her imaginative self.
“My dad recognized (or maybe created in me, I don't know) that I could be adventurous and soft-hearted at the same time. And nobody gets that, so I feel super, super grateful. Whatever it is about his personality and his heart, he decided: ‘I want my little girl to grow up being this warrior, but also knowing that she is a precious, precious person.’”
“How did he do that for you?”
“Storytelling was a big part of it. He read me stories where female characters were the best that women can possibly be: strong, amazing, and independent but also caring, tender, and maternal. All the layers of being a woman and being feminine were presented to me as options.
“And yeah, that came through a lot of good fiction and a lot of good movies. My dad’s storytelling was very impactful. He encouraged confidence in me by telling really good stories and then living out those values with my mom.”
It was storytelling that spurred Madeleine’s imagination. Stories taught her to be both a warrior and a princess; stories taught her what it meant to be a true friend.
As adults, pretend play is mostly a thing of the past. But I think it’s wonderful to remember that each of us—the parents, the professionals, the retirees—used to play pretend. We all used to be kids, spending a good deal of our days in the world of our imaginations and somehow, mysteriously, it prepared us for the real world. It taught us about the real roles we would need to play one day—friend, fighter, caretaker, lover—and planted the seeds of empathy necessary for us to do so.
As children, stories spurred our imaginations into the world of possibility, and playing pretend was our way of participating in that world.
Thanks to Madeleine, here’s the question that’s been lingering in my mind: Is there reasonable cause for us to revisit the power of childlike imagination as adults? If so, what could this look like?
Some prompts to spark further contemplation:
What was your favorite way to play pretend as a child?
What do you think about playing pretend as a form of practice for the dangers of the real world?
