Although literature written especially for children has been a development of the past two centuries, most lasting works of children's literature derive their narrative patterns and structures of meaning from ancient and traditional literary forms and conventions, such as fable, myth, epic, and romance. This study provides an interpretive analysis of superior children's books which use traditional forms in a variety of combinations. In "Just So Stories," Kipling combines the narrative pattern of nature myth with the conception of character typical of beast fable. In these stories, the physical traits acquired by animals tend to affirm specific human values or condemn certain human corruptions. In "Wind in the Willows," Kenneth Grahame uses the traditional function of fable in his satiric treatment of social and political corruption, and uses the traditional function of epic in his assertion of a cultural ideal. In "The Hobbit," Tolkien employs the devices of medieval chivalric romance in the nature of the quest, the nature of the hero, and the symbolic rendering of the forces of Good and Evil. (Author/DB)