Genres and Formats

I bet, if you're like me, you didn't know there was a difference between genres and formats and you use them interchangeably.  There are only TWO genres-fiction and nonfiction, all the others are sub-genres. Fiction is divided in two categories, realism and fantasy. Realism includes realistic modern contemporary works and historical fiction. Fantasy breaks down into even more categories. Traditional fantasy includes folktale, ballad, fable, legend, myth and fairy-tale. Fantasy (Modern) includes Hard Science Fiction and Soft Science Fiction. Hard Science has science as the main part of the story, where as Soft Science has science involved, but the character has the lead. The other part of Fantasy includes High Fantasy/Low Fantasy. High Fantasy has worlds and languages created, where as Low Fantasy is down to earth and takes place in a world we can generally relate to.Low fantasy  takes place in a world we can relate to but are fantasy because part of the story couldn't happen, like animals talking and fairies.
Nonfiction is informational text, but it is also broken down into categories. The first category includes biography, autobiography and memoirs. The difference between an autobiography and a memoir is the timeline, autobiographies will span the whole life of that person, whereas a memoir only spans one portion of that person's life. A narrative nonfiction is and informational book that is written in a story format. Finally, expository text just gives facts and information. Seymour Simon books are a great example of expository text.
Many times people call something a genre when it is really called a subject. Such subjects include mystery, horror, sports, action, war, and humor for example, but it is important to remember these are subject, not genres. Subjects will help students get interested in a type of book and make it easy for the librarian to help them find a book that is a good fit for them.
Formats include Poetry, Drama, Novels, Chapter Books, Short Stories, Picture books, Graphic novels, These are the type of book it is, the style and format it is written in.
So, to sum it up, there are only two genres: fiction and nonfiction, but there are subjects, categories and formats.