This article aims to characterize the specifics of the concept of children’s literature in terms of sociological and structural criteria. The article compiles the main arguments in favor of the existence of the concept, analyzes their validity. The addressee category as the main criterion is recognized as insufficient. The type of the character, narrator, point of view, chronotope are considered in the subject-object organization of the epic and lyric texts. Opinions on the artistic means of children’s literature are given as well. So, in children’s literature, a child as a type of character or of a visually smaller character prevails, that type does not change externally and internally, but he is able to change the world around him. The narrator has a strongly pronounced point of view. The chronotope in children’s literature is simplified by creating worlds with a simpler social organization, referring to the past or “another reality”, the main actions occur in toposes familiar to a child. As a result of the work, an assumption is made that the most part of children’s literature is two-addressable, as well as that there is the need to combine several criteria to form a “children’s discourse”. Examples include works of various genres recognized as a literature for children.