Now, since my children range in age from two years old up to eleven, the question means something different to each of them. Whatever the context, the question is profound. In my view, it is the most fundamental question that anyone can pose about literature. Literature that meets this challenge awakens our senses, inspires our emotions, engage our minds, and enlivens our souls. The power of such fiction is as immense as the power of imagination, a gift we all share.
Nothing is more potent, more unstoppable, than a living, breathing imagination.
If a reader feels that a tale is true, at the deepest levels, then that reader holds a complete vision of the experience. And if he or she can envision a new world, then it is possible to enter into it and inhabit it. For the power of imagination is nothing less than the power of creation. One way is through the characters, who sometimes can feel so true for both writer and reader that they can literally rise up and walk off the page. When characters feel that real, they possess an integrity, an inner flame, of their own, something akin to the Latin anima, which means life force or soul.