animals as people in children's literature

Ours is a highly literate culture,making use of written texts to orga-nize thought, to test beliefs, toconvey what is valued, and to at-tempt to influence the actions andthoughts of others. It is not surpris-ing that for most of us, early child-hood memories include a favoritestory. From among the many storiesthat we have heard or had read tous, there is often one that spokemore directly to us than the others,a story that touched an emotionalchord, somehow reflecting a keenlyfelt need, concern, or set of values.This story stays fresh and whole inour minds. Hearing it revives oldexperiences and feelings we mayhave forgotten. We are able torecreate, in detail, who we were,what we were doing, the values andbeliefs that we were developing, andhow we were coming to relate toothers and to our world.

For Carolyn, that story is Little RedHen (Galdone, 1985). The industri-ous mother and her chicks plant,weed, and finally harvest theirwheat on their own when theiranimal friends continually make ex-cuses for their lack of help. However,when the wheat is ground and bakedinto bread, these same friends ea-gerly volunteer to eat it. Then comethe words that spoke directly to ayoung Puritan soul in development,

Animals as People in Children’s Literature

Books that use animals as people can add

emotional distance for the reader when the

story message is powerful or painful.

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Copyright © 2004 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

“No, I’ll do it myself.” This story andits resolution confirmed Carolyn’sbelief in the rewards of hard work,the need to take responsibility, andthe consequences that befall theslacker. Reading and re-reading this

story became an ethical dialogueand made conscious strongly felt butamorphous beliefs that were devel-oping out of everyday experiencesand decisions.

As teacher educators, we have regu-larly asked our preservice languageand literature students to use theirown childhood stories to reflect onthe power of literature. The majorityof our students have formed a last-ing bond with a story that seems tomirror the world, as they have per-ceived it. The few who have no orminimal conscious connections tostory express their longing for suchexperiences, sometimes going so faras to describe a sense of emotionalimpoverishment.

More recently, we have come tonotice yet another dimension ofthese early literacy experiences. Thisis the high frequency with whichthese personally significant storiesinvolve animals possessing humancapabilities and characteristics. Ad-venturous pigs, wily wolves, stu-dious mice, and the like are thecentral characters in a significantnumber of the stories.

Most children are curious about andfond of animals. Many of us shareour homes and our hearts with ourpets. Certainly our local environ-ments, whether we live in a city, asuburb, or the country, are filledwith a vast variety of animals bothlarge and small. So, it would seemrather intuitive that these same

creatures would find a place in thestories that we tell. And they do.But when these animals begin totalk and scheme and learn to read,we have gone past their intuitive in-clusion in a replication of reality

and have put them to use in a pur-poseful distortion of reality. This useof anthropomorphism prompted thequestion: Why do animals withhuman characteristics populate somany early childhood stories? Whatpurpose do they serve?

To consider anthropomorphism inchildren’s stories, we need to firstclarify the basic functions of litera-ture, and to explore the needs thathave propelled the use of anthropo-morphism in world cultures. Thenwe can come to see how the recog-nition of childhood and the emer-gence of a literature for childrendraw upon these sources. We makeuse of a series of anthropomorphicstories to demonstrate how thisdevice is used to introduce and dealwith new and controversial topics.Finally, we consider the purposefuluse of anthropomorphic stories inthe curriculum.

THE FUNCTIONS OF LITERATUREAll forms of writing—imaginative,critical, scientific, and reporting—arethe tools of thought (Vygotsky, 1986)As a thinking device, the functionsof literature (Huck, Hepler, Hickman,& Kiefer, 2001; Hunt, 1995) seem tohave remained consistent throughtime, for both adults and children,and include the following:

• The need to make sense of our livesand of the world. Life is actuallychaotic with multiple and discon-nected events, decisions, and reac-

tions (Gleick, 1987). There is nopause button to life. Literature pro-vides a device for grouping, organiz-ing, and eliminating events andplacing them within structured pat-terns. The structures actually createthe meaning we come to give to theevents (Rosen, 1986; Wells, 1986).

• The preservation of our understand-ings, knowledge and social beliefs.Life is not only chaotic, but alsofleeting. Once having organized itinto a meaningful interpretation,story structure allows us to remem-ber and consistently preserve ourdecisions (Rosen, 1986).

• Dialogue with ourselves and withothers. The structures of storybecome an agreed upon social tool.In this way, we can hold a mentaldiscussion to reexamine decisions orconverse with others concerningwhat the relevant events and issuesare, how they relate to each other,and what impact this will have onour world (Vygotsky, 1986; Bahktin,1981). The structures then becomethe tools we need to make adjust-ments to our understanding.

• Generate questions and new life al-ternatives. Life and the reexamina-tion of our stories both bring newissues and questions to the fore(Coles, 1989). Attempting to placethese new issues within storystructure has the potential togenerate solutions.

• Gain distance and transcend lifethreats. Sometimes we can say to adangerous and powerful person orinstitution, in story, what we wouldbe afraid to say directly (Bettleheim,1976). Sometimes we can dialoguewith ourselves, in story, about some-thing that we find so frightening orso debilitating that we cannot faceit directly.

• Savor and reflect on experience.Living through an experience doesnot guarantee that we understand it.

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Why do animals with human characteristics populate so many early childhood stories?

What purpose do they serve?

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The ability to first organize and thento reexamine opens the door to re-flection. Not only do we come to un-derstand, but we also come tounderstand with more depth andbreadth (Bruner, 1994). Reflectionbrings intellectual flexibility.

• Simplify and clarify a life circum-stance. All events are not relevant toor of equal value in understanding alife circumstance. Story structureprovides the tools for deciding whatgets discarded in formulating deci-sions (Coles, 1989). You can’t solve apuzzle when you are working withtoo many pieces.

• Formulate a plan to act on the world.Reflection allows us to make deci-sions in the face of uncertainty andto know that if a first decision doesnot work, there are already processedalternatives that can be tried (Dewey,1938). Life is uncertain; things arenot always clearly right or wrong.The act of storying provides potentialworkable alternatives to the issuesthat we face. Being aware that wehave and can generate alternativeresponses provides the impetusneeded to take action.

• Provide momentary escape from thecurrent situation. Sometimes we justneed a break from our own issuesand problems. Reading someoneelse’s story can provide that relief.We can relax for the time being andlet someone else organize. Justmaybe, we might come across anidea or a structure that can actuallybe applied to our current problem(Rosenblatt, 1938). At the least, wewill come away from the experiencereminded that we are not the onlyperson who faces constant decisions.

With the exception of the finalfunction, these are life-determiningand life-altering needs. We are insearch of answers and strategiescrucial to our well-being. This listoffers an explanation for why we

sometimes feel the need to readsome stories again and again.

Now, how do animals come to playso significant a role in this process?How does the use of anthropomor-phism advance these needs?

THE PROCESS OFANTHROPOMORPHISM

Simply put, anthropomorphism in-volves assigning a human trait to ananimal or object. Transmogrification,people morphing into animals, is aspecial case of anthropomorphism.This process has a long and respectedhistory in many world cultures.

One anthropologist, StewartGuthrie (1993), actually argues that all religions are systematic anthropomorphism—attributinghuman characteristics to non-humanthings and events. He goes on to ex-plain that we live in an ambiguousworld and our survival depends on

our ability to interpret it. Recogniz-ing people, where they exist, be-comes critical to our survival and toour success. Visualizing the world ashumanlike becomes a good bet. Weorganize our predictions to increaseour potential to recognize what is ofmost importance to us. In this way,our successes will have pay-offs andour failures will not be as costly.

Anthropomorphism permeates theadult world. When the risks and re-wards are high, when the signs areambiguous, when we are up againstpowerful forces, we envision humanintents and actions cloaked in theshapes of objects and animals, andwe act accordingly. Intuitively then,we begin to see faces in the clouds,

a man in the moon, assign people’snames to life-threatening storms,and watch our investments in bulland bear markets.

Aesop shared a personal philoso-phy through his animal fables, of-fering one view of the humancondition and advice on the con-duct of social exchange. So basicand so powerful are his interpreta-tions of life that many of his taleshave now been retold for children(e.g., McClintock. 2000).

In Animal Farm, George Orwell(1996) presented a costumed versionof the promise and betrayal of theRussian Revolution set in a barn-yard. And of course, we have Planetof the Apes (Boule, 1963) and sci-ence fiction as examples of the useof anthropomorphism in dealingwith adult issues.

Political cartoonists have learnedthis lesson well. A check of anynewspaper’s editorial pages will nodoubt show a world globe witharms, legs, and a voice; a politicalparty led by a pachyderm; or theeconomy flat on its back in a hospi-tal bed receiving a transfusion.When the political, religious, social,or personal risks are high, when weare standing close to the metaphoricfire, the use of animals has long pro-vided intellectual and psychologicaldistance and allowed us to criticallyexplore that which we would not becomfortable exploring directly.

Operating under the same premise,many early peoples generated theircreation stories through the use ofanthropomorphism. Many children’sstories are versions of these creationtales. The Raven: A Trickster Talefrom the Pacific Northwest (McDer-mott, 1993) tells of a time whenpeople lived in darkness. Raven issad for them and decides to searchfor light. Finding it in the SkyChief’s house, he proceeds through a series of tricks, which include

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Anthropomorphisminvolves assigning ahuman trait to ananimal or object.

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transforming himself into a boychild, to steal the sun. Quicklytransforming back into a raven, heflies back to the people and offersthem the sun to light their world.

If anthropomorphism has been aninstrument of adult literacy for along period of history, then howand when did we come to make useof this potent and powerful tool inchildren’s literature?

THE DEVELOPMENTOF ANTHROPOMORPHISMIN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

The first books generally agreedupon by contemporary scholars tofit the definition of children’s litera-ture were published in the 1740s,with the introduction of The PrettyLittle Pocket Book Intended for theInstruction and Amusement of LittleMaster Tommy and Pretty MissPolly by John Newbery in England(Nodelman & Reimer, 2003) Theintent to amuse as well as to in-struct children signaled the emer-gence of a revised culturalrecognition of children and child-hood, and with that, an interest infinding ways to give children plea-sure as they were being instructed.

Before the mid-eighteenth century,the notion of childhood, as we knowit now, did not exist. Children weredressed in the adult clothes of theirsocial class soon after they left theircradles. They were treated as “shortadults” with responsibilities and withproductivity demanded to the limitsof their physical capabilities. Withoutprotection from the hardships of thework-a-day-world, children had fewrights, privileges, or entitlements tohappiness of their own.

As a middle or merchant class de-veloped, every person was no longerneeded to work at providing thefamily income. With leisure camethe opportunity to recreate the place

of children in society. The emergingview declared that children neededextended time to develop beforethey would be able to take on thefull responsibilities of adulthood.They needed guidance and instruc-tion to maintain their safety and toallow them to grow into full mem-bership in society. Play came to beviewed as child’s work during whichthey were discovering and practic-ing lessons, and pleasure came to beseen as an enticement in this pro-cess. To heighten that enticement,animals with human characteristicsbegan to appear in children’s books.

Examining two books significant toJoby’s childhood can give us anidea of how the early transition intoa concern for childhood was han-dled and how two authors usedtalking animals to speak directly toeveryday needs and concerns. Thefirst is the 1845 Struwwelpeter byHeinrick Hoffman (1845/1995) andthe other the 1940 The Rabbits’ Re-venge by Kurt Weise.

Struwwelpeter (or Slovenly Peter) is aseries of silly stories intended toamuse those children who, unlike thecharacters in the book, are “Good atmeal times, good at play. Good allnight and good all day.” Most memo-rable to Joby was “The DreadfulStory about Little Paula and theMatches.” It takes place in an un-likely situation where Mamma andNurse go out for the day, leavinglittle Paula alone with a box ofmatches on the table and the warningthat if she touches those matches, sheis sure to get a good scolding. Twocats explain to Little Paula thatmatches are dangerous; if she playswith them, she will burn to death.Little Paula lights a match andcatches on fire, leaving only smokingashes and her little red shoes.

And when the good cats sat besideThe smoking ashes, how they cried!“Me-ow, me-ooo, me-ow, me-ooo

What will Mamma and Nursey do?”Their tears ran down their cheeks so fast;They made a little pond at last.

The young reader learns the lesson:“Do not play with matches.” Butmore important, she learns the priceone pays for disobedience to one’sparents, however foolish those par-ents might be. In the end, it’s thecats’ tears and sad song that elicitthe strong emotional response fromthe reader, thereby demonstratingthat even one transgression couldbe not only dreadful, but fatal.

In this book, children are presentedas passive beings, totally dependenton their parents to keep them in line.When left to themselves, they makethe wrong decisions. Their impulsesare self-destructive. The mothers andnannies knew that children had to betold what to do, no questions asked.Only the cats were “human” enoughto reason why. From repeated en-counters with this book, Joby notonly learned to value neatness,cleanliness, and quiet good manners,but she became so rule-bound thatshe often hesitated to take indepen-dent action, and relied, instead, uponher mother to make decisions for her.

Struwwelpeter is representative of atransition point in adults’ perceptionof childhood. It was during thisperiod that Froedrich Froebel wasconstructing a first social vision ofchildhood, inventing kindergarten asa vehicle for delivering moral mes-sages, but now with a benevolenttone. Up to this time, most worksavailable to children were dry peda-gogic books. Heinrich Hoffmann, theauthor of Struwwelpeter, was aphysician and director of a progres-sive mental hospital in Frankfort.From his work, he felt it necessary tosoothe the deep anxiety he had seenamong his child patients. He believedthat children would find humor inthe exaggeratedly gruesome conse-quences of misbehavior. In at least

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three of the tales, Hoffman depictsanimals giving lessons. Hoffman hasfish that tease a boy for not payingattention and a rabbit that huntshumans. Hoffman depended on hisexaggerated story lines, funny illus-trations, and some use of anthropo-morphic beings to teach with humor.Indeed, the title of the first edition ofStruwwelpeter in 1845 was MerryStories and Funny Pictures.

Another childhood book, writtenalmost 100 years later, that had apowerful impact upon Joby is KurtWeise’s The Rabbits’ Revenge (1940).Here again is an example of howanthropomorphism is the medium bywhich issues are presented. Old ManShivers, fed up with being cold, de-cides he needs a suit of rabbits’ furand sets out to shoot every rabbit inthe world. The rabbits make plans tostop him. Following directions fromtheir friend, Crow, they dig a tunnel

from the beaver’s dam to the cabinwhere Old Man Shivers lives. RainMan obligingly fills the pond withrain, the beaver opens the dam, andwater rushes through the tunnel towash the cabin down the river. OldMan Shivers, clinging to his roof, isrescued when the townspeople tosshim a rope from the bridge above.They suggest he get a suit of rabbits’fur, but Old Man Shivers says hedoesn’t want to have anything to dowith rabbits; he’d rather have awoolen suit.

Joby struggled with this story:

On the one hand, I’d shed many a tearover the fact that my dad went onhunting trips; I couldn’t believe hewould actually shoot animals. Butthen, I felt very sorry for poor OldMan Shivers. Certainly, I didn’t wantmy father to be the object of the rab-bits’ revenge. Furthermore, I loved itwhen Daddy read the story again and

again and again. He would be OldMan Shivers. Between the times hewould read it to me, I wore the coveroff reading it to myself in the sameshivery voice my father used. I’d studythe final illustration of Old Man Shiv-ers, defeated by the rabbits. And I wasrelieved that the rabbits would be safe,and Old Man Shivers would be warm.

Hearing this story about a huntergoing out to kill innocent rabbits,read by a well-loved father whoalso hunted (for food), brought tearsand conflict. On one hand, the veryidea of hunting would continue tobe abhorrent to the young animallover, and on the other hand, thepoor old man did need to havewarm clothes. It was easy to argueboth sides of the issue, but seem-ingly impossible to reach a settle-ment. Because Old Man Shiverschanged his mind, and the rabbitsfound a peaceful and clever solution

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Alborough, Jez. Captain Duck. (HarperCollins, 2003).Captain Duck takes over Goat’s boat with hilarious results.

Bryan, Ashley. Beautiful Blackbird. (Atheneum, 2003).An adaptation of story from the Ila-speaking people ofRhodesia tells how the colorful birds of Africa askBlackbird to decorate them with black highlights.

Falconer, Ian. Olivia. (Atheneum, 2000). Olivia, a pig, isvery much like many children with high energy and agreat enthusiasm for life.

Hartman, Bob. The Wolf Who Cried Boy. Illus. T. Raglin.(Putnam, 2002). A young wolf tricks his parents intothinking there is a boy in the woods who would make adelicious feast.

Henkes, Kevin. Wemberly Worried. (Greenwillow, 2000).Wemberly, a young mouse, worries about everything,especially starting school.

Hobbie, Holly. Toot & Puddle: Top of the World. (Little,Brown, 2002). When Toot goes off on a walk and doesn’tcome back, Puddle sets out to find him.

Lester, Helen. Tackylocks and the Three Bears. Illus. L. Munsinger. (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). Tacky the pen-guin has the starring role of Goldilocks in a play.

Reiche. Dietlof. I, Freddy: Book One in the Golden Ham-ster Saga. Illus. J. Cepeda. Translator, J. Brownjohn.(Scholastic, 2003). Freddy, an unusual hamster, learnshow to read and write messages on a word processor.

Rylant, Cynthia. Thimbleberry Stories. Illus. M. Kneen.(Harcourt, 2000). Four short stories chronicle the lives of the creatures on Thimbleberry Lane.

Wells, Rosemary. Timothy Goes to School. (Viking,2000). Timothy, a well-dressed raccoon, discovers how to make friends and be accepted.

—Marilyn Carpenter

Books That Feature Animals Who Act Like People

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to the problem, the author providedsome temporary resolution to theissue. Reading the book helped ar-ticulate a position in which huntingfor survival could be seen as fair,while hunting for fun or killing outof anger was wrong.

The Rabbits’ Revenge allowed a pre-school child to enter into a conver-sation with her father about anissue important to both. By giving

the rabbits the capacity to act withhuman reasoning, it was possiblefor Joby to reflect on hunting fromthe perspective of the hunter as wellas the hunted. Years later, in revisit-ing the book with a more experi-enced adult mind, Joby could arguenature is opposed to hunting whenthe purpose is to annihilate aspecies. Still later, other lessons ma-terialize. For example, we can nowsee that animals, and even the rainman, are much more fragile thanportrayed in Weise’s work.

Books can have a more powerfulimpact on a child than is sometimesimagined, and that impact can last alifetime. Those lessons learned earli-est are the most difficult to alter. Weneed to stop thinking about chil-dren’s books as child’s play and ac-knowledge that the body ofchildren’s literature reflects con-tentious issues that reside at thecore of our culture. Children dealwith these issues seriously throughtheir reading and learning.

ANTHROPOMORPHISM: TRENDS,TOPICS, AND ISSUES

Once the construct of anthropomor-phism had been extended to chil-

dren’s literature, it could be enlistedto instruct on topics and issues ofknowledge and social belief. Thetalking, thinking, acting animalscould provide for children whatthey were already providing fortheir adult mentors—a buffered en-gagement with a message of cul-tural significance. The livelyanimals would soften the didactictone and ease the tensions raised bydealing with issues not yet fully re-solved or socially controversial.

Because children’s literature is a pri-mary device used to inculcate andsocialize, an examination of populartopics and story lines reveals trendsin cultural beliefs and changing at-titudes about children’s roles in so-ciety. We attempt, with the use of afew examples, to demonstrate whatthis phenomenon is like.

Our timeline starts in 1840 in Eng-land and Europe with the establish-ment of a middle class and thesocial invention of childhood. Fi-nancial security might have gainedsome children freedom from dailywork, but it did not immediatelyalter adults’ opinions that the chil-dren should be passive receivers ofneeded instruction.

Struwwelpeter represents the firstattempts to add a touch of humor tothe didactic messages that werebeing conveyed in children’s books.From the distance of over 160 years,we might see these tales as harshand heavy-handed. But people ofthe time appreciated both the exag-gerated art and humorous messagesas a relief from the straightforwardharangues that usually conveyedsocial messages. It could be saidthat the key topic of the time was,“Thou Shalt Not.”

Morals and Responsibilities. Theprimary message morphed overtime as concepts of childhood de-veloped and evolved, but the mainmessage was still about morals and

responsibilities. You might notethat as new topics emerge, they donot tend to displace those alreadyestablished, but simply add to therichness of the messages beingconveyed to our young.

At the same time that establishedtopics continue to flourish, they alsoevolve in synchronicity with ourchanging views of the meaning andneeds of childhood. Carolyn’s fa-vorite book, Little Red Hen, is a fineexample of this process. The socialrules are still being taught by ob-serving someone who violates them,but the characters tend to live toprofit from their lessons.

This category is filled with thosestories we think of as classic—TheThree Bears and Little Red RidingHood—but that have been constantlyand prolifically added to over theyears. Think of the popularity ofThe Berenstain Bears series.

Power versus Weakness. The topic of“Power versus Weakness” was oneof the key messages of the creationtales from many cultures and prob-ably was the determining factor intranslating so many of these cul-tural myths from their adult ver-sions to children’s literature. Theyare prescientific attempts to under-stand a powerful and chaotic world.As such, they translate well intochildren’s stories and highlight theweak (child) triumphing over thestrong (adult) through trickery.

• Gerald McDermott’s The Raven (1993)and fables like Aesop’s speak directlyto children’s first explorations of thenatural world and of their weak posi-tion in relationship to adults.

Personal Relationships, the SchoolExperience, and Animal Rights. Thesetopics in children’s books deal withissues on which a culture is doingsome re-thinking and testing out ofnew positions, so the books presentpotential alternative perspectives.

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child than issometimes imagined.

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• Mem Fox’s Koala Lou (1992). A littlekoala comes in second in the BushOlympics and her faith in herselffalters. Mom’s hug and her refrain,“Koala Lou, I DO love you!” providethe needed reassurance. Beingsecond, or simply being in the race,is success.

• Becky Bloom’s Wolf (1999). A fiercevagabond wolf encounters a pig, aduck, and a cow that entertain them-selves by reading. When he fails tofrighten them, the wolf decides tolearn to read. Wolf and the threeother literate animals decide to traveland read to the people they meet.

• Sheree Fitch’s There’s a Mouse in theHouse (1999). A boy finds a mouseand determines that he should kill it.The mouse asks for three wishes, oneof which is to tell her story. The boylearns that she, like he, has responsi-

bilities. They resolve that the micecan live in the home and that shewill pay by telling stories to the boy.Compare this exploration of thecompeting rights between peopleand the animal world with how thatsame topic was handled in Joby’s fa-vorite story, The Rabbits’ Revenge.

It seems that the amazing numberof early childhood books dealingwith literacy, success in school, test-ing, and the reading/writing processare as much vehicles for concernedadults to formulate, clarify, and ad-vance their own positions as theyare intended to open the debate tothe young readers.

Race and Social Class, Ecology,Respecting Difference, FeministIssues, and War. This set of topics isincreasingly open to controversyand to heated debate, reflecting

more openness with children aboutthe social and cultural debates ofour time and admitting that adultsdo not always have the answers.Not all parents and teachers areequally comfortable exposing theirconfusions and conflicts to children.Nor do we find it easy to be facedwith a child who has joined thedebate and elected to hold a posi-tion different from our own. Thediscomfort is so great at times thatindividuals and groups sometimessupport book banning.

• Anthony Browne’s Voices in the Park(1998). Issues of social class surfacewhen two families, characterized byguerrillas with human personalities,use the park and encounter eachother. The encounters are interpreteddifferently by the parent and child ofeach family. The two children, withtheir pets, are more open to and ac-cepting of difference, while the twoparents are more narrow-mindedand set in their views.

• Eric Carle’s “Slowly Slowly,” Said theSloth (2002). A concern for the useand abuse of the Earth underpins themessage in this tale. Sloth does notcommand the respect of the otheranimals who constantly ask him,“Why are you so . . . slow, quiet,boring?” His answer, “I am just how Iam. I do things slowly, slowly, slowly.”

Increasingly, personal and socialvariations of all kinds are beingdiscussed and examined. There is atension between being open andaccepting and being discomfortedand fearful of what is differentand unfamiliar.

• Janell Cannon’s Crickwing (2002). Acockroach, Crickwing, is different intwo ways—he is disabled after roughencounters by other animals, and heis an artist, unique in his love forcolor and sculpting. When Crickwingmeets the smaller leaf ants, hetreats them poorly, as bigger animals

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1840 Reality is harsh. Adults need to take a didactic stance in instructingchildren to take their appropriate place in society. “Thou Shalt Not” is the message.

• Morals & Responsibilities

• Power vs. Weakness

• Personal relationships

• The School Experience

• Animal Rights

• Race & Social Class

• Ecology

• Respecting Difference

• Feminist Issues

• War

• Gay Rights

• Gangs

• Drugs

2003 Children are active, lifelong learners who need to adapt, contribute to change, and to critically explore issues and options.

Figure 1. Timeline: Trends, topics, and issues concerning the use of anthropomorphism in children’s literature

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have treated him. The queen antarranges for Crickwing to be theannual payment the leaf ants areobligated to offer to the army ants.The worker leaf ants set him freeand Crickwing uses his artistic tal-ents to save the leaf ants from thearmy ants.

• Anthony Browne’s Piggybook (1998).Feminist issues are examined when afather and two sons make constantdemands of the mother, showing herno consideration. Gradually pig facesbegin to emerge in the décor of thehome. Then, one day mother is gone,leaving only a note. Father and sonshave fully evolved into pigs by thistime. After the house falls into atotal mess, the three males start tolearn to do things for themselves.

When mom returns, she gets respectand some help with the work.

• Mem Fox’s Feathers and Fools(1996). Children’s consideration ofwar and its underlying causes areconsidered through a pride of pea-cocks and a flock of swans living ina garden. The members of eachgroup focus on the other group’s dif-ferences and begin to see the othergroup as aggressive, so they bothstart planning defenses againstattack. Panic starts the war in whichall of the birds are killed. However,two eggs remain unbroken, and fromthem hatch a peacock and a swan.On seeing each other, they remarkon how alike they are and the twobirds join forces as friends.

Gay Rights, Gangs, and Drugs. Thislast set of topics opens up considera-tion of the potential change and/or

disruption of our culture from inter-nal forces. They raise the fear thatby introducing an issue, we mightactually be encouraging children toexperiment. These are also issueswith which many of us are most un-comfortable and where we might beaware of a difference between ourintellectual positions and our gut re-actions. Maybe this is why Elmer, inThe Sissy Duckling (Fierstein, 2000),is called a sissy, but never gay.

• Harvey Fierstein’s The Sissy Duckling(2000). Elmer is not like the otherboy ducks; he likes to bake and toput on plays. When a hunter shootsand wounds his father, Elmer carrieshis father to safety and nurses hisfather through the cold northernwinter. In the spring, the returning

flock assumes he and his father havedied. His father tells what Harveydid, and the sissy becomes a hero.

• Willy the Wimp by Anthony Browne(1989). A breakdown in the fabric ofour society is considered when Willy,who is gentle and considerate, be-comes the butt of the suburbanchimpanzee gang. The gang giveshim the nickname, “Willy the Wimp.”So, when an ad for a body-buildingprogram appears, Willy jogs, takesaerobics, boxes, lifts weights, andgoes on a special diet. Following hisphysical transformation, Willy meetsthe gang on the street in the processof attacking a young lady. He scaresthem away and becomes the younglady’s hero.

Topic Change, Topic Stability. Sometopics and messages have a long lifeand become classics. All the while,

new issues and concerns emergeand are added to the list of topics.Sometimes a new message and anew interest hijack a classic story,like The Three Little Pigs.

• Teresa Celsi’s The Fourth Little Pig(1992). The three pigs have a sisterwho has been traveling around theworld. The Fourth Little Pig visits andfinds her brothers cowering in theirhouse of bricks, terrified to go outlest the big bad wolf get them. Sheblows down their house, councilsthem in the face of real but control-lable dangers, and continues her ex-ploration of the world.

In each of these books, the basicprinciples hold, and we deal withissues of deep and lasting culturalsignificance, letting the animals tryout our roles for us. We let themtake the risks and absorb the pun-ishments when plans fail or solu-tions fall through. The intellectualand emotional distance that the ani-mals’ role-playing allows childrenand their mentoring adults grantsspace in which to become reflectiveand critical concerning life prob-lems and life choices.

PUTTING THE ANIMALS TOWORK IN THE CURRICULUMWe have attempted to establish thatanthropomorphism is a device thathas been used over time and acrosscultures, and have offered examplesto demonstrate that authors of chil-dren’s literature have made extensiveuse of this device to open a dialoguewith their readers. Much of this usehas been intuitive. Reflective use inour classrooms could increase boththe power and control learners canexert over their experiences.

When a life or imaginary incident isturned into a story, a single instanceis transformed into a generalizationthat becomes available to be appliedby all who encounter it. Storying,both factual and fictional, becomes

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The intellectual and emotional distance that the animals’ role-playing allows children and

their mentoring adults grants space in which to become reflective and critical concerning

life problems and life choices.

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the basis for all informal and formaleducation (Graves, 1989). Anthropo-morphism, animal characters aspeople, can add a degree of emo-tional distance for the reader/writer/speaker when the story messageis very powerful, personal, andpainful. We most need to readabout, write about, and talk aboutthose things that are personallypainful, embarrassing, and danger-ous to us. Having animals do theacting and mistake-making allowsthe face-saving emotional distanceoften needed to be able to join theconversation (Applebee, 1978;Dyson & Genishi, 1994).

Both a democratic society and theinformational culture in which welive demand an active, contri-buting, and critical citizenry.Education is no longer seen ascontrolling factual memory, but asthe ability to imagine, create, andact. The more we place value onsupporting learners as independent,critical, and flexible, the greaterthe value we will place on litera-ture and its devices.

Children’s Books Cited

Bloom, B. (1999). Wolf. New York: Orchard.

Browne, A. (1989). Willie the wimp. NewYork: Knopf.

Browne, A. (1990). Piggybook. New York:Knopf.

Browne, A. (1998). Voices in the park. NewYork: DK.

Cannon, J. (2002). Crickwing. New York:Scholastic.

Carle, E. (2002). “Slowly, slowly,” said thesloth. New York: Philomel.

Celsi, T. (1992). The fourth little pig. Illus. D.Cushman. Austin, TX: Steck-Vaughn.

Fierstein, H. (2000). The sissy duckling. NewYork:Simon & Schuster.

Fitch, S. (1999). There’s a mouse in thehouse. New York: Firefly.

Fox, M. (1992). Koala Lou. New York: Trumpet.

Fox, M. (1996). Feathers and fools. SanDiego: Harcourt Brace.

Galdone, P. (1985). Little red hen. New York:Houghton Mifflin.

Hoffman, H. (1995). Struwwelpeter. NewYork: Dover. (Original work published1845)

McClintock, B. (2000). Animal fables fromAesop. New York: Godine.

McDermott, G. (1993). The raven: A trickstertale from the Pacific Northwest. NewYork: Scholastic.

Wiese, K. (1940). The rabbits’ revenge. NewYork: Coward-McCann.

References

Applebee, A. (1978). The child’s concept ofstory: Ages two to seventeen. Chicago:The University of Chicago Press.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagina-tion. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Bettelheim, B. (1976). The uses of enchant-ment. New York: Knopf.

Boule, P. (1963). Planet of the apes. NewYork: Vanguard.

Bruner, J. (1994). Life as narrative. InA. Dyson & C. Genishi (Eds.). The need for story: Cultural diversity in class-room and community, (p. 28–37).Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Coles, R., (1989). The call of stories: Teachingand the moral imagination. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education.New York: Collier.

Dyson, A., & Genishi, C. (Eds.). (1994). Theneed for story: Cultural diversity in class-room and community. Urbana, IL: Na-tional Council of Teachers of English.

Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a new sci-ence. New York: Viking Penguin.

Graves, D. H. (1989). Experiment with fiction:The reading/writing teacher’s companion.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Guthrie, S. (1993). Faces in the clouds: A newtheory of religion. London: Oxford Univer-sity Press.

Huck, C., Hepler, S., Hickman, J., Kiefer, B.(2001). Children’s literature in the ele-mentary school (7th ed.). New York:McGraw Hill.

Hunt, P. (1995). Children’s literature: anillustrated history. Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press.

Nodelman, P., & Reimer, M. (2003). Thepleasures of children’s literature (3rd ed.).Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Orwell, G. (1996). Animal farm. New York:Signet Classic.

Rosen, H. (1986). Stories and meanings.London: National Association for theTeaching of English.

Rosenblatt, L. M. (1938). Literature as explo-ration. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and lan-guage. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Wells, G. (1986). The meaning makers. Ports-mouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Carolyn L. Burke is a retired professor of education, Indiana University. JobyGanzauge Copenhaver is a lecturer inreading and literacy education, State Uni-versity of New York at Geneseo, New York.

Author Biographies

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animals as people in children's literature

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