Maxine has “billions of imaginary friends,” in her imaginary world. With her incredible drawing skills, she sketched a few of them out for this film. Above is her drawing of Milou. Milou is an imaginary friend replica of Maxine’s husky, who later passed away.Below are...

Scwigee is a dragon who is part turtle and part horse. He also happens to be 5-year old Max’s imaginary friend. Max first made this drawing of Scwigee when he was really young (even younger than 5):

Then, he explained that Scwigee doesn’t really look like that. First, h...

The author Alice McLerran tells the story of neighborhood kids who created an imaginary town called Roxaboxen on a rocky hill strewn with sand, cactus and discarded crates. She got the idea from her mother, Marian Doan, who wrote down the true “History of Roxaboxen” wh...

As a child, Charlotte Brontë, (best known for her novel Jane Eyre,) and her sisters and brother played with twelve wooden soldiers they called the “Young Men.” To record the adventures of these toy men, the children sewed scraps of paper into miniature books, some as s...

My camera is named Kermit. Yesterday when I was filming with Max, his sister Opal and Mom, Allison, they gave Kermit some googley eyes to match. I might be biased but I think he looks quite handsome.

The “very stately and magnifick” imaginary library invented by Alcofribas Nasier (an anagram of François Rabelais) was called St. Victor, and found in Paris. Some of the imaginary works it contained were:

• The pomegranite of vice

• The trevet of good thoughts

• ...

Every year, over the course of a weekend, San Francisco’s Civic Center is transformed into a giant playground. Except this playground is for children of all ages who’ve hit the streets to take part in San Francisco’s Come Out & Play Festival. Sandwiched between the lib...

In the poem, “Oatmeal,” Kinnell tells how he livens up a lonely breakfast. He invites the famous, but long-dead poet John Keats to share some imaginary conversation over porridge. There must be something about oatmeal that cries out for embellishment. Poet and writer R...

Alison Gopnik shares her insightful research about children and creativity. This audio is from an event held at the Creativity Museum in San Francisco, March 5th, 2015. Click on the player to hear the full talk.