Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

The Fable And The Fabulous: The Use Of Traditional Forms In Children's Literature, Ned Samuel Hedges

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Because children’s literature is considered to be a development of the past two centuries, it is generally believed that there are differences between children's literature and adult literature. The majority of people who have written extensively about children's literature have been primarily concerned with those differences. I too believe that there are differences between children's literature and adult literature; but those differences seem to me to be neither as extensive nor as significant as has been commonly assumed. What are the differences? Can they be described? Are there also significant similarities between children's literature and adult literature?

I believe that …