Animals in Fiction by Allison Symes
Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I have a soft spot for animals in fiction. I was a huge fan of Timmy in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five . I always thought he was the most intelligent of the lot but then I’m a dog owner so am probably biased. The childhood book that meant to a lot to me was Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty . I found out much later it was written to encourage sympathy and kindness towards horses (though I hope it did also encourage people to develop those traits for other creatures too). I was moved to tears by the sacrifice scene of Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. The film adaptation was pretty good too. I have occasionally written from an animal’s viewpoint in my flash fiction. One story was told from the viewpoint of a mother dragon and was fun to write. But I generally focus on writing human/humanoid characters, despite my having loved animals portrayed in fiction for so long. Animals can, of course, be s...