ABSTRACT
It has always been difficult to define exact boundaries between children's literature and the broader domain of reading material read by adults. This has arisen for many reasons, some based on what the reading material intrinsically happens to be, and others on social and cultural factors. Adoption occurs when children ‘take over’ a work (book, cartoon, film or video) and make it their own, so that it becomes generally associated in the public mind as ‘a work for children’ or ‘a work that children are expected to enjoy’. This process may entail making the work their own to the general exclusion of adult readers (who will then read it only for nostalgia, as story-tellers, or as children's book specialists), or it may remain popular with both adults and children.
