Contents -- Preface Intersections in Surprise -- Acknowledgements -- 1 The "As If" of the Child's World: An Introduction to Child Language and the Child in Literature -- 2 The Language of Childhood Remembered: Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence -- 3 Perpetual Rebeginnings: The Short Fiction of Clark Blaise -- 4 Stages of Language and Learning in W. O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind -- 5 Delight without Judgement: The Language of Visionary Enthusiasm in Ernest Buckler's The Mountain and the Valley -- 6 Emily Carr and the Language of Small -- 7 Infant Sensibility and Lyric Strategy: Miriam Waddington, P. K. Page, and Dorothy Livesay -- 8 A Play Box Full of Plays: James Reaney's Colours in the Dark -- 9 Child, Magician, Poet: Playing with the Preverbal in Dennis Lee and bill bissett -- After Words On Fringe, Cracked Sky, and the Song of Birds -- Bibliographical Notes -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.