Historical Fiction...Or is it?

As we have been discussing in class, historical fiction is hard to define. Just because a piece of literature has historical events with made up characters that are taken place throught the piece of literature, does that make it historical fiction? If it does, then why are some events so clearly fictional? Several pieces of literature have made up events that could rarely happen in a specific time period. For example, as we discussed in class. There was a piece of literature that we read that was considered to be historical fiction. However, in this book, there was a scene where the four year old boy told a detailed story about what he remembered. As we discussed this particular scene in the book, we came to the conclusion that very few four year old boys would tell a detailed like this four year old boy did in the book. So, what makes it okay for an author do put very rare events into a hisotical fiction book. I thought historical ficiton books were supposed to tell a story about real event that have happened throughout history, with real events and make believe characters. Another example of this that we read about for class was the novel, "Sarah Plain and Tall." Though this book is considered to be historical fiction, there are many different representations of this book being historical unaccurate. For example, Sarah travels to live with a men, by herself and when she returns, no one judges her. During this time that this book is supposed to take place, women were rarely travelling alone yet alone staying with men that they were unrelated to. Another unaccurate event is she comes back to her home town and the people of the town do not judge her which again would be a very rare event. So, from this example of Sarah Plain and Tall, why did the author put these events into this historical fiction novel if there were not accurate and should we still consider it historical fiction?
Along with this, when we have been reading and discussing historical fiction, we can realize that the author or authors writing the historical fiction book or piece of literature have put there own interpretations into their work. For example, when there are historical fiction books about a specific war that has happened during history, the perceptions of the winners and the losers will have an entirely different point of view. There will be several different ways in which the author puts their own personal view point, whether they mean to do this or not. Therefore, is it historically accurate since it is based on their perspective? Historical fiction authors have thoughts about writing a historical fiction piece of literature, however, with the rare events added in and their own perspectives added in, does that really make it historical fiction and where do we draw the line between the different genres when dealing with historical fiction literature?