Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc

Animal Fantasy
is traditionally a favourite form of children’s fantasy and one of the 
most enduring. Its roots can be traced back at least to Aesop’s fables from the fifth century 
B.C.
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Very likely they reach down to oral traditions of even more ancient times, such as 
folktales and myths. An animal fantasy features a community of sentient
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loquacious animals 
as its main characters that form structured societies comparable to humans. If they do have 
contact to single humans, these are mainly children. Characteristic of this type of fantasy is 
the anthropomorphisation of domestic or wild animals that are fitted out with human traits 
such as distinctive character, behaviour, foibles and outward appearance, first and foremost 
clothing. The degree of anthropomorphisation varies from author to author. Whereas Adams 
embeds and depicts the rabbits of Watership Down in a natural habitat, leaving them many 
animal instincts and patterns of behaviour, Grahame’s Badger, Mole, Rat and Toad resemble 
humans very strongly. They don clothes, furnish their homes - in Toad’s case, a huge country 
house - and Toad even drives a car.
Each in their own way, animal fantasies tell allegorical stories of the animal kingdom, 
easily transferable to human society. Usually, their cast is not subject to much fluctuation. 
From an established, well-tried and thus reliable pool of characters, authors choose their 
animals according to their natures and the kind of story they intend to tell. Popular stock 
characters are taken from the familiar environment of the reader, so domestic species 
predominate. A downside of this limited choice is that portrayals easily assume overtones of 
stereotype and cliché. Owl, cat, mouse, rat, rabbit, duck, donkey, pig, squirrel, weasel and fox 
are used by authors like Adam, Milne, Potter or Pratchett. Exotic and ferocious animals as in 
Kipling’s Jungle Books with their cast of tiger, wolf, snake, panther, elephant and bear are 
seldom chosen. Interesting and challenging are those occasions when authors introduce 
entirely new or marginalised animals for more intense effects or new points of view. With 
badger, mole and toad Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows offers an unusual, but refreshingly 
new combination.
At the turn of the millennium, animal quests have not lost their attraction in British 
children’s fantasy. Pringle highlights the influence which the booming heroic fantasy and its 
secondary realms exert over the structure and pattern of contemporary animal fantasy. 
According to him, the phenomenon of “the large-scale fantasy which utilises animals instead 
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Caxton’s printed version dates back to 1484; further adaptations for children followed. See Keith Barker. 
“Animal Stories”. In: Hunt; Ray, International Companion Encyclopedia, pp. 282-294, p. 282.
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Clute; Grant, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 31. 

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of humans in the unfolding of a quest narrative or tale of an epic struggle, often supernaturally 
tinged”, is best captured in Adam’s Watership Down.
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Animal Fantasy comprises a large 
spectrum which ranges from Kipling’s Jungle Books, Potter’s animal tales, the American 
White’s Charlotte’s Web (1952) to Hugh Lofting’s Dr. Dolittle (1920). Representatives of the 
thriving animal quest are Adam’s Watership Down, Jacques’ Redwall (from 1986 onwards), 
Dann’s The Animals of Farthing Wood (1981), Baldry’s Eaglesmount (2001), Pratchett’s The 
Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
(2001) and Jarvis’ Deptford Mice (from 1989 
onwards).
Whereas the main focus of animal fantasy lies on the special nature of its characters,