Books like This Is Sadie

Same drifting-off-into-dreams feeling, but My Pony by Susan Jeffers narrows all that wandering imagination down to one dappled horse and one long night ride.

Same daydreaming-child energy, but The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson adds real danger, scissors snapping shut on the fun.

Sadie makes worlds from nothing. Patrick by Quentin Blake does it with one violin and fish flying overhead.

No words at all here, so the pretend-play wonder has to come entirely from Free Fall by David Wiesner's pictures.

Sadie builds castles from cushions. Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson hands that same impulse a crayon and lets the kid draw the entire adventure himself.

Same dreamy what-if logic, but the question-and-answer build in The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer gives the imagining a gentle back-and-forth rhythm.

That swing-higher-than-treetops feeling from Sadie's flights gets a wordless picture book all its own in Imagine a Day by Sarah L. Thomson.

Sadie makes up whole lives from nothing. Words with Wings and Magic Things by Matthew Burgess does that with single words, so every page turn is a new leap.

Sadie turns ordinary days magical by imagining. Tuesday by David Wiesner just lets the magic happen, frogs floating with no explanation needed.

If the pretend-play and made-up worlds are what your kid loves most, A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers by Nancy Willard hands them a whole inn full of strangers to imagine.

Keep this one for a quiet, dim-lit stretch before bed. Shadow by Suzy Lee is all hush and one small lamp.