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 consists 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.