ABSTRACT
Children are born into a material world. They belong to it, and they depend on it for their livelihood. It is in their nature to try and find a footing in this world. They orient themselves by attempting to make sense of it all and by figuring out how things fit together. Dominating features and recurring events become ‘landmarks’ to aid this orientation, so that the children can accommodate themselves among their varied fellow creatures, living as well as nonliving, and come to terms with the powers and forces that control them. Like every human being they look for relationships, connections, explanations, reassurance and familiarity. This universal human trend may be the basis of their endless curiosity, but it is, after all, a matter of survival. And children do survive, partly because they grow up in the protecting company of caring adults, and partly because of their attempts to master their world by understanding.
