ABSTRACT
It is often felt that it is right and proper to begin the discussion of a particular subject area by providing a definition, and commentators on literature written for children have provided a host of definitions over the years. John Rowe Townsend is one of the best known of those commentators and assigns responsibility to the publisher in deciding what is a children's book:
In the short run it appears that, for better or worse, the publisher decides. If he puts a book on the children's list, it will be reviewed as a children's book and will be read by children (or young people), if it is read at all. If he puts it on the adult list, it will not—or at least not immediately.
(1980:197)