The best depictions of animals come from writers who have first-hand experience of the creatures they write about
IF you leaf through a collection of some of Britain’s best-loved children’s books, it is remarkable how many of them feature animals, either as main characters or as much-loved sidekicks. From Victorian tales to contemporary classics, there’s an abundance of horses, dogs, cats and other creatures racing across the pages, capturing generations of readers and helping to foster the enduring love of animals that so many of us share.
Animals add a sense of fun and unpredictability to children’s books—they can be as idiosyncratic and eccentric as humans and furnished with irrepressible energy and good humour. As main characters, they transport readers into another world and, as accomplices, they are (generally) obedient to their young owners, faithful companions keen to get involved in all sorts of adventures.
Two of the best-known series for young children are A. A. Milne’s ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ collection and Michael Bond’s ‘Paddington’ books. Both feature bears that incline more towards the teddy rather than the grizzly variety and both of them have survived the test of time, remaining firm, which Milne had published two years earlier. The inspiration for the character famously came from a toy bear belonging to Milne’s son Christopher Robin, which, in turn, had been named after a Canadian black bear called Winnie who lived at London Zoo. Pooh’s irrepressible good humour and propensity for finding himself in sticky situations immediately made him a popular figure and, following the sale of the film rights to the Walt Disney Company in the 1960s, his fame spread internationally.
