In Dave Eggers’ new middle-grade animal protagonist tale, The Eyes and the Impossible, he makes a disclaimer at the onset: This is a work of fiction. No places are real places. No animals are real animals. And, most crucially, no animals symbolize people. . . .”
Hmmm. The animals may or may not be based on the personality of one person, but certainly an author pulls together traits—quirks, strengths, and flaws when creating a character, and those traits come together to form the whole, if the character is to be at all relatable. And yes, we recognize those traits as familiar because they’re not uncommon. Mr. Eggers may have had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote this, so let me just say, “Ha-ha-hoooo!”
I dare you to not anthropomorphize. Close your eyes and do not imagine putting yourself in the skin (hide, fur, scales, feathers, or—er—exoskeleton) of Babe, Mrs. Frisby, Nemo, Soren, or Charlotte. Or Moby Dick, for that matter. Think of anything else, but under no circumstances are you to see yourself as the main character of the animal book you are reading. What’s that? You can’t help it? Well, before anyone accuses you of being a treacle-loving simpleton, be assured that you are not alone!
But I get it—for some it’s like dawning the Harvey bunny suit. We like what we like and will not be shoe-horned into a genre we have no tolerance for. Though it cannot be overstated how many children do like this type of story simply because they can imagine animal characters as a human of any ethnicity, any age, or vocation. Relatable regardless of integument.
They’re easy to recognize because of their frailties and flaws, and they stand in for real-life families, friends, and foes. Children easily see the symbolism of animal stories and assert themselves into roles safely removed from reality. That doesn’t mean we don’t cry when Bambi’s mom is shot by the “He”, because the parallel is all too real. We ask children to consider the unthinkable, but from an alternate world and the safety of a book they can close if things get too intense.
It would be difficult to trace the origin of animal stories given their place in old and ancient fables and fairytales used to convey a moral message—the very pap that E.T.A. Hoffmann tried to remedy when he wrested storytelling away from moralizers he believed too utilitarian.
Jack Zipes writes the forward for the Penguin Classics edition (2007) which includes the dual versions of Hoffmann’s Nutcracker and Mouse king, and Alexandre Dumas’ The Tale of the Nutcracker. He describes the resistance to Hoffmann’s avant-garde approach to the arts raised by those Hoffmann himself termed as “philistines”, or those “who had a narrow if not uninformed appreciation of the arts.” Though Hoffmann had nothing to do with the Russian ballet, clearly those who chose the libretto appreciated,
“His concepts of insanity, genius, music, hypnotism, dream, and reality [that] formed a modern aesthetic theory, and he explored these unique ideas in other worlds that, he insisted, could be found in everyone’s imagination . . . Hoffman was a man ahead of his time . . .”
In other words, those who cannot imagine these alternate realities are to be pitied.
Fables and folklore have their place. Every adult that is tested in perseverance will recall Tortoise and Hare. Every person who has felt different or an outcast will remember The Ugly Duckling, and we learn to judge character by a story of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Who can doubt that animals provide a subtle, and usually humorous way to introduce themes to the reader? They quickly gain our sympathy, or our fear of being devoured (sorry Red), and we would do well to see persons who mean us harm in that same skin.
Yet authors continually run into resistance in the publishing world when it comes to an animal story, leaving those of us who think up such tales to cast about for a reason, wretched in our limbo, hugging our heads in fits of self-examination. And so we sputter:
Please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason,
Why they’d deny young tots these tales in due season.
It could be they fear they’re not so commercial,
And worry too much about financial reversal.
Whatever the reason, big bucks or small,
They stand on their principle hating them all!
Then, there are the gate-keepers who back them up by eschewing even the very donations to their collections. Growing up, did these same people not love, Wind in the Willows? Rabbit Hill? Charlotte’s Web? Watership Down? Were they not raised on Aesop? Mother Goose? Beatrix Potter, Rudyard Kipling, Helen Dean Fish, C.S. Lewis, Robert Lawson, Robert C. O’Brien, Brian Jacques? What about all the more recent successes like Tale of Despereaux? Pax? Applegate’s One and Only Ivan/Bob/Ruby? Or Dick King Smith’s Babe: The Gallant Pig? Avi’s Poppy books, Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse (Joey!!!).
Huh—and there are others, too! All sold well, and many were made into movies. And not because they were treacle; please do not call it treacle! They sold because of their fully-fleshed, complicated, relatable characters and plots: Mrs. Frisby, a single mother who must provide for her children; Ivan, magnanimous in captivity; Johannes yearns for true freedom; Pax must find his boy, from whom he was ruthlessly separated; Babe, who comes face to face with his mortality (thanks to that mean cat). And then there’s the consummate sacrifice of Aslan.
Maybe this isn’t a good time to mention Russell Hoban's The Marzipan Pig, but in spite of his sugary composition the story still has something important to say about how each life touches another in ways we can’t possibly know. Even if this last example might be too hard to swallow, all of these are arguably affairs of the human condition, and themes that throb through all that live and breathe, and each, in its own way, offers an antidote for a harsher reality.
Lately, agents and publishers are bemoaning the lack of readership at the middle-grade level. “Sales have slumped”, they say, “Kids are just not interested in books”, they confirm. “There’s no remedy for the ever-shortening attention span!” Poppycock!
Back in April 19 of 2022, Leonard S. Marcus, writing in Publishers Weekly (Making Room for Children’s Books), discussed how publishers sometimes get it wrong. Basically, they lose touch with a particular demographic, in this case, middle-graders. In the 1990’s they came to believe that fantasy was passé, and that readership had dropped off because of tech-happy kids who couldn’t be bothered with books. There was no competing with cell phones, Nintendos and the like, so they threw up their hands and focused on other things.
Enter J.K. Rowling. Even amid lamentations that her books were a “dumbing down” Marcus wrote,
But as the series swept the globe, countless other, more sympathetic observers noted the extraordinary impact the books were having on children’s reading habits and felt compelled to rethink the common wisdom on the subject. Tech-enamored preteens, Potter-mania revealed, still read books avidly when the right books came into their hands. Fantasy fiction, far from being passé, still had broad appeal—for boys as well as girls. In a time of supposedly shrinking attention spans, a long book was not an automatic nonstarter and might even be welcomed as a wizard-worthy challenge.
Could it be that everything old is new again? Especially the part about “[they] still read books avidly when the right books came into their hands.” This is an age group for which I have the utmost respect when it comes to judging a book’s quality. They know what they like, and will not be snookered into reading what amounts to a waste of their time. Sales do not need to slump. There is no attention-span boogeyman. Let’s stop force-feeding them and give them what they want: good stories that don’t preach or hew to a lackluster narrative. It happens just as in the 18th century, Hoffmann “detested the utilitarian nature of the philistines” (ibid.). And like then, we just need to fix the dearth of digestible books aimed at these kids and the money spigot will once again magically spew . . . well, money!
Maybe not all readers love wings, scales, fur, and feathers. But it would be a mistake to assume, or to write, that those with such are not capable of feelings that are profound, with motives sometimes pure or sometimes adulterated, days that are good or bad, grace offered when not deserved (Toad, this means you!), or tolerance granted in hopes the same will be offered in return, because sometimes, flawed individuals go along to get along.
While we are on the subject of commonalities, both human and animal share an array of emotions and instincts (for better or worse), such as herd mentality, a need for cooperation, fight-or-flight, hygiene, adaptation, maternal/paternal instinct, vocalizations. These all work seamlessly into a story arc when animals stand in our place. Look no further than YouTube for examples that show the extent of animal humor, grief, joy, or altruism. Or meanness, crankiness, and selfishness. That should bring any number of people to mind. Animals offer the perfect parallel existence in which to explore and learn about ourselves.
Writers cultivate empathy in young readers and enrich a reading foundation by giving them fantastical plots and characters. An animal protagonist possesses a perspective close to the earth and sees, smells, hears, and tastes things that are not so accessible to us in our controlled environments. What we view as cute or beautiful, scary or gross, is all a matter of utility to an animal. Perspective is everything, and this can’t fail to make a fun and interesting POV.
When authors do their job, any hero or heroine should be one that readers slip easily into the skin of. If not, they’ve written a flop worthy of all the one and two star reviews. Because most important of all, a reader should be able to see themselves and grow emotionally from the experience of a story. Animal stories offer non-biased role models and give examples of behaviors to avoid. As young readers observe the character’s growth, both emotional and physical, it gives meaning to their own experience—those in their past, and those they suspect are yet to come, namely, death and change, hope and purpose, all of which give context to the life they’ve been given. And it is possible, as Mary Poppins might say, that “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” after all.
Hmmm. The animals may or may not be based on the personality of one person, but certainly an author pulls together traits—quirks, strengths, and flaws when creating a character, and those traits come together to form the whole, if the character is to be at all relatable. And yes, we recognize those traits as familiar because they’re not uncommon. Mr. Eggers may have had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote this, so let me just say, “Ha-ha-hoooo!”
I dare you to not anthropomorphize. Close your eyes and do not imagine putting yourself in the skin (hide, fur, scales, feathers, or—er—exoskeleton) of Babe, Mrs. Frisby, Nemo, Soren, or Charlotte. Or Moby Dick, for that matter. Think of anything else, but under no circumstances are you to see yourself as the main character of the animal book you are reading. What’s that? You can’t help it? Well, before anyone accuses you of being a treacle-loving simpleton, be assured that you are not alone!
But I get it—for some it’s like dawning the Harvey bunny suit. We like what we like and will not be shoe-horned into a genre we have no tolerance for. Though it cannot be overstated how many children do like this type of story simply because they can imagine animal characters as a human of any ethnicity, any age, or vocation. Relatable regardless of integument.
They’re easy to recognize because of their frailties and flaws, and they stand in for real-life families, friends, and foes. Children easily see the symbolism of animal stories and assert themselves into roles safely removed from reality. That doesn’t mean we don’t cry when Bambi’s mom is shot by the “He”, because the parallel is all too real. We ask children to consider the unthinkable, but from an alternate world and the safety of a book they can close if things get too intense.
It would be difficult to trace the origin of animal stories given their place in old and ancient fables and fairytales used to convey a moral message—the very pap that E.T.A. Hoffmann tried to remedy when he wrested storytelling away from moralizers he believed too utilitarian.
Jack Zipes writes the forward for the Penguin Classics edition (2007) which includes the dual versions of Hoffmann’s Nutcracker and Mouse king, and Alexandre Dumas’ The Tale of the Nutcracker. He describes the resistance to Hoffmann’s avant-garde approach to the arts raised by those Hoffmann himself termed as “philistines”, or those “who had a narrow if not uninformed appreciation of the arts.” Though Hoffmann had nothing to do with the Russian ballet, clearly those who chose the libretto appreciated,
“His concepts of insanity, genius, music, hypnotism, dream, and reality [that] formed a modern aesthetic theory, and he explored these unique ideas in other worlds that, he insisted, could be found in everyone’s imagination . . . Hoffman was a man ahead of his time . . .”
In other words, those who cannot imagine these alternate realities are to be pitied.
Fables and folklore have their place. Every adult that is tested in perseverance will recall Tortoise and Hare. Every person who has felt different or an outcast will remember The Ugly Duckling, and we learn to judge character by a story of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Who can doubt that animals provide a subtle, and usually humorous way to introduce themes to the reader? They quickly gain our sympathy, or our fear of being devoured (sorry Red), and we would do well to see persons who mean us harm in that same skin.
Yet authors continually run into resistance in the publishing world when it comes to an animal story, leaving those of us who think up such tales to cast about for a reason, wretched in our limbo, hugging our heads in fits of self-examination. And so we sputter:
Please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason,
Why they’d deny young tots these tales in due season.
It could be they fear they’re not so commercial,
And worry too much about financial reversal.
Whatever the reason, big bucks or small,
They stand on their principle hating them all!
Then, there are the gate-keepers who back them up by eschewing even the very donations to their collections. Growing up, did these same people not love, Wind in the Willows? Rabbit Hill? Charlotte’s Web? Watership Down? Were they not raised on Aesop? Mother Goose? Beatrix Potter, Rudyard Kipling, Helen Dean Fish, C.S. Lewis, Robert Lawson, Robert C. O’Brien, Brian Jacques? What about all the more recent successes like Tale of Despereaux? Pax? Applegate’s One and Only Ivan/Bob/Ruby? Or Dick King Smith’s Babe: The Gallant Pig? Avi’s Poppy books, Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse (Joey!!!).
Huh—and there are others, too! All sold well, and many were made into movies. And not because they were treacle; please do not call it treacle! They sold because of their fully-fleshed, complicated, relatable characters and plots: Mrs. Frisby, a single mother who must provide for her children; Ivan, magnanimous in captivity; Johannes yearns for true freedom; Pax must find his boy, from whom he was ruthlessly separated; Babe, who comes face to face with his mortality (thanks to that mean cat). And then there’s the consummate sacrifice of Aslan.
Maybe this isn’t a good time to mention Russell Hoban's The Marzipan Pig, but in spite of his sugary composition the story still has something important to say about how each life touches another in ways we can’t possibly know. Even if this last example might be too hard to swallow, all of these are arguably affairs of the human condition, and themes that throb through all that live and breathe, and each, in its own way, offers an antidote for a harsher reality.
Lately, agents and publishers are bemoaning the lack of readership at the middle-grade level. “Sales have slumped”, they say, “Kids are just not interested in books”, they confirm. “There’s no remedy for the ever-shortening attention span!” Poppycock!
Back in April 19 of 2022, Leonard S. Marcus, writing in Publishers Weekly (Making Room for Children’s Books), discussed how publishers sometimes get it wrong. Basically, they lose touch with a particular demographic, in this case, middle-graders. In the 1990’s they came to believe that fantasy was passé, and that readership had dropped off because of tech-happy kids who couldn’t be bothered with books. There was no competing with cell phones, Nintendos and the like, so they threw up their hands and focused on other things.
Enter J.K. Rowling. Even amid lamentations that her books were a “dumbing down” Marcus wrote,
But as the series swept the globe, countless other, more sympathetic observers noted the extraordinary impact the books were having on children’s reading habits and felt compelled to rethink the common wisdom on the subject. Tech-enamored preteens, Potter-mania revealed, still read books avidly when the right books came into their hands. Fantasy fiction, far from being passé, still had broad appeal—for boys as well as girls. In a time of supposedly shrinking attention spans, a long book was not an automatic nonstarter and might even be welcomed as a wizard-worthy challenge.
Could it be that everything old is new again? Especially the part about “[they] still read books avidly when the right books came into their hands.” This is an age group for which I have the utmost respect when it comes to judging a book’s quality. They know what they like, and will not be snookered into reading what amounts to a waste of their time. Sales do not need to slump. There is no attention-span boogeyman. Let’s stop force-feeding them and give them what they want: good stories that don’t preach or hew to a lackluster narrative. It happens just as in the 18th century, Hoffmann “detested the utilitarian nature of the philistines” (ibid.). And like then, we just need to fix the dearth of digestible books aimed at these kids and the money spigot will once again magically spew . . . well, money!
Maybe not all readers love wings, scales, fur, and feathers. But it would be a mistake to assume, or to write, that those with such are not capable of feelings that are profound, with motives sometimes pure or sometimes adulterated, days that are good or bad, grace offered when not deserved (Toad, this means you!), or tolerance granted in hopes the same will be offered in return, because sometimes, flawed individuals go along to get along.
While we are on the subject of commonalities, both human and animal share an array of emotions and instincts (for better or worse), such as herd mentality, a need for cooperation, fight-or-flight, hygiene, adaptation, maternal/paternal instinct, vocalizations. These all work seamlessly into a story arc when animals stand in our place. Look no further than YouTube for examples that show the extent of animal humor, grief, joy, or altruism. Or meanness, crankiness, and selfishness. That should bring any number of people to mind. Animals offer the perfect parallel existence in which to explore and learn about ourselves.
Writers cultivate empathy in young readers and enrich a reading foundation by giving them fantastical plots and characters. An animal protagonist possesses a perspective close to the earth and sees, smells, hears, and tastes things that are not so accessible to us in our controlled environments. What we view as cute or beautiful, scary or gross, is all a matter of utility to an animal. Perspective is everything, and this can’t fail to make a fun and interesting POV.
When authors do their job, any hero or heroine should be one that readers slip easily into the skin of. If not, they’ve written a flop worthy of all the one and two star reviews. Because most important of all, a reader should be able to see themselves and grow emotionally from the experience of a story. Animal stories offer non-biased role models and give examples of behaviors to avoid. As young readers observe the character’s growth, both emotional and physical, it gives meaning to their own experience—those in their past, and those they suspect are yet to come, namely, death and change, hope and purpose, all of which give context to the life they’ve been given. And it is possible, as Mary Poppins might say, that “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” after all.
