The inner life of children, reveals V. Glasgow Koste in this classic work now available for the first time in a trade edition, is intuitively dramatic. "Mere child's play" is a child's work in learning to be human. Koste, winner of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Honorary Research Award, speaks to all professionals who work with children and equally to parents who would recapture what it is to be a child. Koste looks at children's dramatic play and the role it plays in developing life skills and a sense of art. Pedagogically and theoretically sound, Dramatic Play in Childhood is written in the warm and humorous voice of someone who knows children and has worked extensively with them, and in the voices of the children themselves. This subtly shaped book penetrates the rituals and mysteries of play, revealing not sterile explanations but larger questions.