Creating Animal Characters for Children's Stories

Animals as characters in books and stories have a long history throughout the world cultures. They have frequently been the vehicles through which allegorical tales have been told and often featured in folk stories, myths, legends and traditional tales. This was a way of providing people with an understanding of human behaviour and the world around them and also how to live their lives, in other words by teaching morals.

It is only relatively recently that animal characters have been largely consigned to children's stories, with some well known exceptions such as George Orwell's Animal Farm and Richard Adam's Watership Down, both of which can be read on different levels and which are metaphors for social and political regimes.

Like other genres and subjects in the children's book world, stories with animal characters swing back and forth in terms of publishing trends but I think it's safe to say that they always remain favourites with children. What editors dislike are those which are just too cute or twee and who (or which) are thin and lack substance.

All characters, animal or not, must be as strong, three-dimensional and original. The fact that they mainly feature in books for very young children, most often picture books, does not mean they can rely solely on their cuteness.

What I am focussing on in this article is the use of animals as main viewpoint characters in stories rather than stories about animals.

There are three main types of animal protagonist: the ones who are really humans in disguise, who wear clothes, live in houses, go to school and generally have the intelligence and mental attributes of a human. Despite their animal appearance they can do everything humans do, despite paws and hooves. This is true anthropomorphism.

Those in the second category are animals in terms of their general behaviour and habitat yet are imbued with human emotions, consciences and thought.

The third category include those which are entirely animal in behaviour and environment yet can still 'talk' or communicate with each other although never with humans.

Why do children love animal stories? Well, of course most children love animals, particularly the furry variety. They are warm and safe and cuddly, often taking the place of humans, both children and adults. Young animal characters suffer the same worries and insecurities as children, or do things which a child would like to do. Themes are often more easily portrayed and understood using an animal rather than a human character. Children seem to relate to them more easily. Adult animals are independent yet still retain childlike qualities and allow children an understanding of adult behaviour.  

Tips 

Decide whether your character is totally anthropomorphic, totally animal-like or somewhere in between.

Strong, three-dimensional characterisation is essential

This is a difficult genre to write well.

Read as many books as you can by authors who excel in this area.