Magic & Make-Believe
Some nursery rhymes keep their feet on the ground. These do not. In this corner of the tradition, reality loosens its tie and imagination takes over. The moon speaks, wishes reshape the world, and a child can chase the horizon as if it were a reachable place.
Often the “magic” is gentle rather than dramatic — a bedtime moment turning mysterious in Bedtime, or the moon becoming a character in The Man in the Moon and Moon, O Moon in the Empty Sky. Sometimes it’s pure possibility: If Wishes Were Horses treats imagination like a real force, while A Little Boy Ran to the End of the Sky turns wonder into a journey.
These rhymes don’t ask to be explained. They ask to be pictured. And once you picture them, you’re already in the make-believe world.
