Anthropomorphic animals in children’s fiction are common, but are they the best approach when you’re writing for young readers? Learn more in this video, and read the transcript below.

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Anthropomorphic Animals In Children’s Fiction Transcript

Hi, this is Mary Kole from Good Story Company, Kidlit, and Mary Kole Editorial. I am talking to you today about anthropomorphism. This is a very near and dear topic to the Kid Lit heart specifically for people writing for children. And I wanted to discuss it with an eye toward marketability for anthropomorphic characters. Now first we have to define anthropomorphism and I think the clearest definition is anything that acts like a human and is not a human. But for example, if you take the candelabra in ''Beauty and the Beast'' and all of the other characters like the maid who is a feather duster, all of these are anthropomorphized objects, which means that they speak like humans think like humans behave like humans have human mannerisms and can do what humans do, but they are not in fact human. So I would say that animals who have anthropomorphic features to them also fall into this category. I don't know if aliens necessarily or robots do because they are human-like a lot of the time.

I don't know if you're a sci-fi space opera AI robot story is necessarily going to fall under the anthropomorphic umbrella. Here, generally I do mean other kinds of creatures that are familiar as objects or animals that behave in human ways. And this is especially popular in children's books because a lot of writers think, oh, wouldn't it be cool if this tugboat suddenly talked or obviously Thomas the Train is an example of something that is very interesting to kids. So the train world made human and given human characteristics. There is no doubt that this approach is very, very popular and rightfully so in a lot of cases. But are there any issues with anthropomorphic characters for the children's market?

So let's start in terms of which part of the children's market we wanna talk about. Usually, the younger the story, the more the market for that story tolerates anthropomorphism. That would be your board books, your picture books, early readers and getting into chapter book. I would say that the real divide between whether or not anthropomorphic creatures are okay in the marketplace happens right around middle grade. In middle grade, the Warriors series is a huge watershed example for anthropomorphic animals, for the middle grade audience. That would be cats, lots and lots of cats behaving and acting very much like humans would or human characters would. That's sort of the series that everybody talks about when it comes to middle grade as seen as the upper barrier for anthropomorphic work.

Now, we have all sorts of animals and different creatures in books like Harry Potter. Harry Potter, of course started middle grade and then aged up to the final installments when Harry is a teen, arguably would fit more into the YA category if they were published just outright as new works. There are some creatures and all sorts of objects, magical or not that would fall under the anthropomorphic umbrella. But Harry Potter, by and large is still considered kind of middle-grade even though it ended older. I think it really does stop at middle grade for a lot of new works, especially debut talent that does want to incorporate anthropomorphic elements. And the younger you go, the easier it is for the market to tolerate.

There has been a bit of pushback I would say against anthropomorphic animals and objects. And that simply has to do with the great, I think, swell of submissions that do have these elements that frankly have led to some boredom with this device among literary agents and publishers. Obviously with picture books, you're really not gonna get away from anthropomorphic animals. I would say probably, and this is just a number off the top of my head, probably 50/50 out there for picture books starring humans versus picture books starring human-like dinosaurs, trains cats, that sort of thing.

I mean, I have a huge picture book collection that I go through regularly with my children and we have every creature under the sun probably acting in human ways. And so in picture books, board books, you are very much in anthropomorphic, say that 10 times fast, territory. It's very friendly. But you do want to be a little careful and really consider why you're choosing a certain anthropomorphic element. For example, a cow, there have been a lot of anthropomorphized cows and do we need another one in the market or can you make maybe a more interesting choice or can you make a human choice? I think especially right now the market is very much moving toward representing diverse humans and celebrating all of the different backgrounds of where humans come from. And so to continue writing cats or dogs or what have you may not take advantage of the great wealth of diversity are available to you if you wanted to celebrate some human characters.

So I think keeping a slight eye on the marketplace will benefit you when you're trying to decide what kind of creatures, what kind of objects, what kind of characters you wanna feature in your picture book, especially because the picture book is ideally going to be illustrated. And so I think maybe human characters in today's market will better be able to represent all of the different variety of people that are gonna be reading the books. In illustration that could be a very nice celebratory way to be inclusive with your picture book characters. And so maybe right now, anthropomorphic animals, anthropomorphic objects are gonna be a tougher sell. And that does go up into early reader and chapter book.

When we get into chapter book, I would say, and this is for the seven to nine-year-old readers, those readers who are just starting to read independently. There you're gonna see far more human characters than animal characters than anthropomorphized objects. I think picture book is probably one of the last places in terms of that kind of progression of age groups where you're really gonna see objects like boats, like trains, like, you know, fruits and vegetables. They're younger. These Bewitched objects unless they're like in a middle grade fantasy really do tend to cluster around board book and around picture book. In chapter book, we really start to see animals, yes, but more and more and more of the characters tend to be human. And so I would say if you're writing early reader, if you're writing chapter book, if you're writing middle grade, you're gonna find fewer examples of anthropomorphic characters, animals, especially anthropomorphic objects as you go up in those age groups. You're gonna see a lot more humans acting like humans or, you know, humanoid robots or what have you if you're writing science fiction, if you're writing your fantasy, then you are gonna see talking grapes, telling you to eat your veggies, grapes are fruits, but you know what I mean?

I would say the market I think is a little conservative when it comes to its enthusiasm for anthropomorphic characters. I would say animals and humans tend to carry the day when it comes to lead characters and humans tend to really lead the pack when we get up to chapter book to middle grade. One of the toughest sells I would say is the anthropomorphic object. For example, a garbage truck or a broom. There's probably the least amount of opportunity to debut a character like that. And I think that the market very much wants to showcase people and animals before it showcases anthropomorphic objects. Will this change? I don't know. I do think that a lot of people, especially those writing picture book for the first time, maybe they tend to use anthropomorphic characters, especially animals, especially common animals like Teddy bears or farm animals or domestic pet animals. Those tend to be sort of the first ideas that a lot of people have when they sit down to write a picture book, when they sit down to write a chapter book or an early reader. And that may not necessarily be very impressive in the slush pile.

I would say if you have a book with some very classic anthropomorphic animals or objects in it, would this work in your creative vision with humans? And if it doesn't, can you maybe try and find a very unique type of animal or object to sort of represent the characters in your project? That is how I would approach anthropomorphism in today's market. I think it still can work, but approach with caution and whenever possible, really try to maneuver yourself in a way where, you know, so this is 2019 now and if you have had children or a baby in 2019, you may have noticed that sloths are absolutely everywhere in terms of baby blankets and lovies. I had a baby in 2019, which is why I'm, you know, paying special attention to the Target baby section, sloths are absolutely just the hottest creature of 2019. So what I'm seeing is more books with a sloth in them and more sort of focus on the sloth as an animal that is the hero of a picture book or a board book or an early reader, much more so than I have ever seen them before.

Keep an eye on trends. Maybe think of a unique creature, a unique object that you wanna anthropomorphize. Maybe don't go with the trendiest animal, do sure. But that could be a fun opportunity for you to think outside the box if you absolutely feel like you have to take the anthropomorphic approach. So a very popular topic for the children's writers in this group and something to think about. My name is Mary Kole. Thank you so much for listening and here's to a good story.

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