With the publication of "Boys and Girls" in 1984, Vivian Gussin Paley took readers inside a kindergarten classroom to show them how boys and girls playand how, by playing and fantasizing in different ways, they work through complicated notions of gender roles and identity. The children s own conversations, stories, playacting, and scuffles are interwoven with Paley s observations and accounts of her vain attempts to alter their stereotyped play. Thirty years later, the superheroes and princesses are still here, but their doll corners and block areas are fast disappearing from our...

Four-year-old Eli plays alone at the shore, inventing dramas out of sand and water. He is Builder, Fireman, Protector, and Scout, overcoming waves and conquering monsters. Enter Marianne and doll, Mother and Baby, eager to redefine Eli as a good father and homesteader. Their separate visions intertwine in a search for a common ground on which howling wolves and butterfly sisters can learn to understand and need one another.

What can the richly imagined, impressively adaptable fantasy world of these children tell us about childhood, development, education, and even life itself? For...