When Nature Becomes Magical – Children, Imagination and the Natural World
On secret worlds among tree roots, little discoveries, and the magic that happens when we see nature through a child’s eyes.
There’s something special about going for a walk with a child who isn’t in a hurry to get anywhere.
A stone can become a treasure. A branch can turn into a magic wand. And a little hollow among the roots of an old tree might be the entrance to a home we grown-ups would never have noticed.
I often experience this with my daughter, Sienna. We can walk the same route countless times, and yet there’s almost always something new to discover. A tiny mushroom that wasn’t there yesterday. A snail making its way across the path. A tree that looks as though it’s hiding a secret. Sometimes we stop to explore what we’ve found. Other times, we begin making up stories about it.
And it has made me wonder what nature really brings to children’s imagination.
A World Without a Story Already Written
One of the things I love about nature is that it doesn’t tell us what to imagine. A tree wasn’t made to be a castle. A branch wasn’t designed to be a sword. And a pile of leaves doesn’t come with instructions. Yet they can become almost anything.
Perhaps that’s one of the differences between nature and many of the things we surround children with. A toy might have a particular purpose or come with a story that’s already been decided. Nature’s materials leave more room for interpretation.
A stick can be a fishing rod one day and a magic wand the next. A stone can become a treasure, a cake or a dragon’s egg. And the child gets to decide.
The psychologist James J. Gibson introduced the concept of affordances to describe the possibilities for action that we perceive in our surroundings. Researchers studying children’s play and outdoor environments have since used the concept to explore how children discover and make use of the opportunities offered by natural spaces.
A fallen tree trunk, for example, might invite a child to balance, climb or sit. But it could just as easily become a bridge across a dangerous river in an imaginary world.
I think it’s a lovely way of understanding what nature offers children’s play: possibilities, without necessarily telling them what to do.
When We See a Tree, and Children See a Whole World
I sometimes catch myself walking too quickly. I have somewhere to be, things to get done, and perhaps a shopping list already running through my mind.
But then Sienna stops. Maybe she’s spotted some tiny mushrooms growing on an old tree stump. Or perhaps she’s noticed a gap between the branches that I would have walked straight past. And suddenly, we’re no longer simply on our way somewhere. We’re standing in front of what could be the entrance to another world.
It reminds me how differently children and adults can experience the very same surroundings. We tend to see what we recognise. Children may be more interested in what something could be.
I don’t think we grown-ups need to invent elaborate adventures to encourage that curiosity. Sometimes it’s enough to stop. To take a closer look. And perhaps ask: Who do you think lives in there?
Nature Makes Room for Both Play and Quiet Discovery
When we talk about children spending time in nature, we often focus on fresh air, movement and physical activity. And of course, those are important parts of being outdoors. But nature can also offer moments of calm, curiosity and quiet concentration.
A child might spend ages examining a beetle, collecting stones or following an ant as it makes its way through the grass. To us, it may seem like a very small activity. To the child, it might be an entire world.
Research into children’s play in natural environments suggests that varied landscapes can offer a wide range of opportunities for play, exploration and creative activity. That doesn’t mean every walk in the woods automatically makes children more imaginative. But nature can offer something valuable: spaces, materials and experiences that children are free to give their own meaning.
And perhaps that’s why those little discoveries often stay with us. Not because we had planned a special activity, but because the child found something worth exploring.
The Ancient Secrets of Nordic Forests
I think my fascination with nature is also closely connected to the stories I grew up with. In Nordic fairy tales and folklore, nature is rarely just a backdrop. Forests can be home to trolls and mysterious underground beings. Hills and ancient stones are woven into old legends. And Icelandic folklore tells of hidden people who live within the landscape, usually unseen by human eyes.
These stories add another layer to the natural world. A mountain is still a mountain. A forest is still a forest. But perhaps there’s something hidden there, too. I love that idea. Not because children need to believe in trolls or elves, but because these stories invite us to look at nature with curiosity.
What if there’s a story behind that enormous stone?
What if the old tree has been standing there for so long that it knows secrets we’ve forgotten?
And who might emerge from the forest once all the people have gone home?
To me, that’s one of the most beautiful connections between Nordic nature and our storytelling traditions.
Bringing a Little of the Forest’s Magic Home
When I began creating Little Northlings, the Nordic natural world was one of my greatest sources of inspiration. I kept coming back to woodland animals, trees, mushrooms and all the little details that make the forest feel so special. Nordic nature is also one of the things I associate most strongly with childhood and the feeling of home.
I wanted to create characters that children might recognise from the natural world, but that would also leave room for something more.
A badger can simply be a badger. But perhaps he’s on his way home from a secret meeting in the woods.
A bear might be standing quietly among the trees. But perhaps he’s waiting for a friend who hasn’t arrived yet.
And a little treehouse might be home to fairies who only appear when the light falls in just the right way.
It isn’t my job to decide what children should imagine when they see these characters. I simply hope they’ll feel inspired to make up stories of their own.
Perhaps they’ll recognise a mushroom from a walk in the woods. Or perhaps they’ll begin telling a story completely different from anything I could have imagined.
That’s one of the loveliest things about children’s imagination. It can begin with something we can all see and take us somewhere none of us expected to go.
Perhaps the Magic Is in the Little Moments
I don’t think children need grand adventures in nature to find inspiration. We don’t always have to take long walks through the forest or visit somewhere extraordinary. Sometimes all it takes is a tree on the way to kindergarten. A tiny beetle in the garden. Or a cloud that looks like something familiar.
Perhaps what matters most isn’t where we go, but whether we take the time to notice things along the way. Because when I think back to the little stories Sienna and I have invented together, it’s rarely the walk itself that I remember. It’s the moment when something perfectly ordinary suddenly became something else. When a fairy had planted magical mushrooms in an old tree stump. And when, for a little while, we got to visit a world that existed only because we had imagined it together.
References and Further Reading
Gibson, James J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin.
Kyttä, Marketta (2004). The Extent of Children’s Independent Mobility and the Number of Actualized Affordances as Criteria for Child-Friendly Environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24(2), 179–198.
Fjørtoft, Ingunn (2004). Landscape as Playscape: The Effects of Natural Environments on Children’s Play and Motor Development. Children, Youth and Environments, 14(2), 21–44.