論兒童故事的範圍

The Boundaries of ''Stories for Children''

兒童故事雖然數量不少，但是它的定義和範圍一直不明確。人們在提到兒童故事時，有時指廣義的、有時指狹義的。這篇論文除了提醒讀者注意這種混淆的情形外，指出要單獨的、從正面去描述它的定義很困難，而應該從整個兒童文學的分類系統去觀察，才能瞭解它是指敘事體兒童文學扣掉神話、童話、小說、寓言等之後剩餘的「其他」類。其次，本文又指出常見兒童故事之下包括民間故事，是不妥當的。因為民間故事是不同的分類概念，它可以包括童話、寓言等等；所以，兒童故事底下可以包括的，應該是「寫實類民間故事」。再者，目前兒童故事歸屬於散文大類中，限定了它不可以用韻文寫作，這是不合理的。如果暫時沿用習見的分類，起碼要拆除散文、韻文、戲劇三大類這一層，直接在兒童文學之下分為童詩、童話、故事……等等。至於兒童故事之下再分為生活故事、歷史故事、寫實類民間故事的建議，只是權宜之計，其實還是用了不只一個分類標準，不夠嚴謹。將來有機會檢討整個兒童文學分類系統時，應該同時設想更為嚴謹合理的分類辦法。

This essay aims to explore the generic boundaries of ''stories for children,'' a specific genre in Chinese children's literature. Prescribing the confines of such a genre is not easy as ''stories for children'' is a label usually used to refer to a huge amount of prose narratives intended for children which exclude the fairy tale, the fables, the myth, the novel, etc. My argument is that as a genre, ''stories for children'' does not include the folk tale, as the folk tale consist s of folk fairy tales, literary fairy tales, fables and other kinds of traditional narratives. ''stories for children'' is a genre at the same level as the fairy tale or the fable. Moreover, ''stories for children'' and picture story books should be considered two different genres. The former is mainly a verbal genre while the latter is a mix of word and image. The content of picture story books may be from fairy tales, fables, myths, novels or any other kinds of stories.