I don't know how this impacts the discussion... but I read the story as being more related to the Native American oral tradition than a children's story. In my experience, oral tradition "stories" that describe factual events in a fictitious/fanciful manner often contain conflicts of chronology, character, and plot.
For example, one of my Navajo relatives loves to tell our birth stories. For mine he would say, "She tried to walk out. Her feet were ready to take her great places. She just couldn't wait to [insert different things here]." Sometimes he says "run away from her mother" but usually it is some random thing that would make no sense at the time of my birth, but relates to a recent or future event... like "run to the King event in NYC" This jumbled time line fusing past, present, and future is common in his retelling and confusing to some people.
Also, he will use different names for different people - like the Man in Black/Merlin/etc. - that make it seem as if the story isn't about the same person we know. We know who he's really talking about, but we suspend belief because it is 'a story'. When I asked about this as a child (he told a story about me but called me Young Dove) he said, "Maybe that was your name then and you didn't know it. We all have different names at different times in different worlds. I was telling that story. You would tell it different."

I guess that idea - different names, times, worlds - is why I'm not so caught up on the conflicts in King's work? I sort of read it as an oral tradition with the same 'flaws' that I've grown up hearing.