Once a week, I'm going to do a Kid's Corner post, devoted to children's literature. Today's question is about how to define genre in Children's Literature. Some people would place Young Adult lit here too, but I think it makes more sense to discuss that with adult fiction, since the crossover in readership and material is profound. When I discuss Children's Lit, I'm talking about books for young children up to Middle Grade. Children's Lit encompasses the full range of genres that you find in Young Adult and Adult fiction. But the books are shelved by age, not the type of story. That makes sense. These are books for kids at widely divergent stages of reading ability, and catering to the vocabulary and sophistication of the reader is far more important than narrowing selection by interest. Kids are also more open to different genres than older readers. They aren't as quickly bored as teens and aren't as hardened in their tastes as ...
