Children's literature is somewhat unique in literary subgenres in that it is defined by its audience. Children's literature is not inherently different from ‘literature’ (which, notably, is not called ‘adult literature’) in terms of lexicon, complexity of plot, choice of themes, subgenres (like fantasy or sci-fi) or stylistic devices. The genre is neither limited to nor alone in employing fantasy, anthropomorphic animals, coming of age themes, or quest structures, for instance. But there may be a greater preponderance or concentration of such elements in children's literature than in its adult counterpart. It is rather, as Claudia Nelson writes, ‘a matter of degree rather than one of kind’ (2006: 226). And yet the presupposed child reader radically alters every aspect of what that literature is and does. The audience the genre is named after proves crucial to any understanding of what makes children's literature unique.

So, too, children's metafiction does not appear appreciably different than metafiction that presupposes an adult reader. The same devices are used, and for similar reasons. Yet, here as well, the same fundamental revision is key to understanding the particularities of the subgenre: the child reader presupposed by children's metafiction radically changes the picture. For that reason, Nelson even suggests that by sharing the same implied reader, children's metafictions have more in common with one another through ‘family resemblance’ than they do with their adult counterparts (229).

Given that the focus of this book is the particular challenges to and stakes for transmediating children's metafictions to the screen, a careful understanding of what children's metafiction purports to be and do for the child reader is essential groundwork. This necessity is compounded by the comparative scarcity of scholarship on the genre. Children's metafictions then become the ‘sourcetext’ for their adaptations into (typically) children's film and television—and along with the rise of children's metafiction, instances of these adaptations are increasing as well. This chapter will discuss the what, how, and why of children's metafiction, focusing in particular on how it manifests in the same ways as adult metafiction but activates a very different set of contexts. The chapter follows three main sections. The first, ‘What is Children's Metafiction?’ examines definition issues and paradoxes specific to the children's subgenre.