Types of Novels
What all are the books that can be classified as Children’s Novels

A novel is generally described as a fictitious prose narrative of substantial length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organisation of action and scenes. The genre has historical roots in the medieval and early modern romance and also in the tradition of the novella. A novella is a fictional prose narrative that is longer and more complex than a short story, more like a short novel.

Novels for ‘young adults ’ are written for children in the age group of 14-21.These books are distinguished by the fact that the protagonist is mostly a youngster or a character, a child can identify with. The themes are generally didactic. Mark Twain has been a favourite author of this genre. His novels ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ have attained great popularity. The well-known Harry Potter series also falls in this group. ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll is a famous example of the category.

An autobiographical novel is based on the life of the author. It is should not be confused with an autobiography, since an autobiographical novel is partly fiction and is based broadly on the experiences of the author. To be recognised as autobiographical, there must be a central character based on the author and the main plot that depicts events from his or her life. Some examples of autobiographical novels are ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens, ‘Little Women’ by Louisa May Alcott, ‘Villette’ by Charlotte Bronte, and ‘Childhood’ by Leo Tolstoy.

A Christian Novel, however is a novel that illustrates a Christian world view in its subject with a positive plot and characters. Many novels, with Christian themes like J RR Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’, are seen as mainstream fantasies. Aslan in C. S. Lewis' ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ allegorically represents Christ.

Another from of novels is epistolary novel, that is written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, with diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents. The epistolary form that became popular in 18th century adds greater realism to a story, because it mimics the workings of real life helping to demonstrate differing points of view without an omniscient narrator. The modern day version is blog writing.

Then there are detective novels like ‘The Three Apples’, narrated by Scheherazade in the famous Arabian Nights. In this story, a fisherman discovers a heavy locked chest along the Tigris River which is sold by him to the Caliph who finds a dead body inside. The Caliph orders solving of the crime thereby finding the murderer within three days. Suspense is generated through multiple twists in the plot that transpire as the narrative unfolds. This story is considered an archetype for detective fiction.

A yet another form of novels namely Utopian Novel is the creation of an ideal world or a utopia as the setting for a novel and the Dystopian Novel is the opposite which is the creation of a world of nightmare or dystopia. The word utopia was first used in by Sir Thomas More in his work ‘Utopia’. Utopia means "no place" in Greek, and is similar to the Greek term eutopia which means "good place". George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen-Eighty-Four’ is an example of the dystopian novel. In this novel that got published in 1949, Orwell prophesied the beginning of a flawless totalitarian society, in which the individual is of literally no significance. Aldous Huxley's ‘Brave New World’ and Anthony Burgess' ‘A Clockwork Orange’ are some more examples of this genre.

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is often linked with utopian (and dystopian) literature, because it shares the general preoccupation with ideas of the good (and bad) society with the protagonist travelling to alien lands like Lilliput (the land of dwarfs) and yet making a clear come back owing to his survival instinct.