The mainstream view of developmental psychologists has been that early childhood is a 'high season of imaginative play'. Watching children at play seems to bear this out. However, both the purpose and the nature of children's imagination have recently been subjects of debate. We will examine fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of children's imagination, play, and narrative comprehension in development. We will also ask whether 'imagination' and 'play' have been appropriately conceptualized: are the explicit and tacit assumptions that developmental psychologists have made about the nature of 'play' convincing, and are they well-defined? We will also ask questions about future thinking and counterfactual reasoning and whether and how they impact children's learning and development.