Children's literature is often used a channel for transmitting moral norms and values, i.e., as an educational channel. As part of such an instrumental approach, certain specific functions (in Propp's sense) formed in children's literature as elements for constructing a narrative. These motive functions are normativity and sanction. The article also proposes to identify as subjects performing these functions the source of normativity, the instance of normativity, the source of sanction, and the instance of sanction. Using several of Kornei Chukovsky's fairy tales as examples, this article describes in detail a proposed approach to examining works of children's literature.