At present, scholars generally believe that fairy tales are mainly read by lower primary school students and preschool children. However, if it is too absolute to think that fairy tales are only for children and others simply disdain them, I am afraid it is not realistic. Even in Andersen's classical fairy tale era, fairy tales were not only read by children, but some works were probably impossible for children to read or could not be fully understood in childhood. It is difficult for the children in The Daughter of the Sea to appreciate the religious dedication and the meaning of life. Andersen said: "I wrote fairy tales with all my feelings and thoughts, but at the same time I didn't forget the adults." Such works have not lost readers, and even influenced many to become classics, such as The Daughter of the Sea. However, we also have the saying of "adult fairy tales", which generally refers to martial arts novels. However, all kinds of transcendental ideals, yearning and comforting demands of human emotional world will exist in all ages, far from being covered by martial arts novels. Therefore, the adult world needs fairy tales and little princes, which can keep more innocence and poetry.
Fairy tales are a kind of children's literature. Through rich imagination, fantasy and exaggeration to shape the image, reflect life, and carry out ideological education for children. General stories are magical and tortuous, vivid and simple, and descriptions of natural objects are often anthropomorphic, which can adapt to children's acceptance. (Cihai)
Fairy tales are an important type of children's literature. It is a fictional story with a strong fantasy color, and uses exaggeration, personification, symbolism and other expressions to weave strange plots. Fantasy is the basic feature of fairy tales, and it is also a special artistic means for fairy tales to reflect life. Fairy tales mainly describe virtual things and realms, in which the "characters" are not real imaginary images, and the stories told are impossible. But all kinds of fantasies in fairy tales are rooted in reality and a reflection of life. Fairy tale creation generally adopts exaggeration and personification, follows certain logic to develop bizarre plots, produces a strong fantasy atmosphere and transcends the constraints of time and space, which is also virtual and real, and seems to be virtual and true. In addition, it often uses symbolic techniques to create imaginary images to insinuate and summarize realistic interpersonal relationships. (Dictionary of Children's Literature))
From the perspective of expression, fairy tales can be roughly divided into three types: superman fairy tales, anthropomorphic fairy tales and normal fairy tales. But these three are not completely separated, and sometimes they are interrelated. In other words, in a fairy tale, there may be both normal and humanoid expressions. Wait, wait.
From the perspective of subject matter, fairy tales (fairy tales with big concepts) can be divided into two categories: scientific fairy tales (also known as "knowledge fairy tales") and literary fairy tales (also known as "moral fairy tales"). The usual "fairy tale" defaults to "literary fairy tale".