AustLit

Scott examines the novels of several American and British writers as well as Australian Ruth Park's Playing Beatie Bow, exploring the relationship between the inner and outer worlds depicted in children's fantasy novels and evolving concepts of the representation of time and its dislocation. Scott utilizes Piaget's description of young children's sense of reality whereby 'thought is conceived as belonging to the category of physical matter' to discuss 'the increasing connection and proximity between emotion and magic in recent children's literature (14). She argues that 'as the century progresses, the time traveller's self-concept and personality increasingly undergo significant growth and change even to the point of reassessment and redefinition of the innermost sense of self and self-identification' (14). For instance in Playing Beattie Bow, Scott claims that 'time itself becomes a mirror in which the children seek their reflection, looking back into the past to give depth and dimension to their impoverished sense of self, and find new images in a looking glass of another age' (18).