Maurice Sendak famously railed against children's books. He found them to be contrived and stupid. When I heard him say these things, he was already preaching to the choir. I learned this lesson when I was young and found it to be true more and more.
A good children's story is as entertaining to the adult reading it as it is to the child hearing it. A children's story that is plain or derivative will not be entertaining, and just isn't that good. Of course, a child might enjoy hearing it, but children tend to like being read to in general. You could read Stephen Hawking to them and they could be enthralled.
The rules of storytelling apply to children's stories as much as any other: build a sense of place, make relatable characters and make us care about them. Entertain us first, and try to educate. Anyone who ever thinks that writing a children's story is easy or is a cop out either has no clue about the efforts that go into good storytelling, or has never read a good one.
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