Abstract
In the Czech literary studies environment, children's literature is traditionally defined on the basis of the intended child reader. However, this approach cannot include the fairly broad field of "unintentional children's literature", while another great disadvantage of the term "intended reader" is its semantic vagueness.
An alternative way to approach the definition of children's literature is offered by the term "implied child reader", which was first systematically described and applied by Aidan Chambers. The present article analyses Chambers' use of the term "implied child reader" by going back to the Iserian roots of this term, and it subsequently considers the pros and cons of this alternative.