Picaresque narrative

Last night I explained to a high-school student why one of his answers on a reading comprehension test was wrong. He had said that one of the paragraphs was about "the picaresque novel," when in fact it was about the picaresque narrative as one of the predecessors of -- and therefore not itself an example of -- the novel.

Today I read in The Story of Alice a reference to "Carroll's picaresque narrative style."