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It’s uncommon enough that I doubt there are people who do write this, but it’d be totally awesome to find people who did! Animal Fiction/Animal Fantasy is from the perspective of an (anthropomorphized, to varying extents) animal. Other than that, there’s not any real requirements. Some of them feel more fairy-tale like and talk to humans, others like Black Beauty or Call of the Wild are more realistic in modern society and don’t talk to humans, others like Warrior Cats take place in modern day but have no interactions with humans and others like Redwall or Guardians of Ga’hoole are in an alternate world without human and have organized societies and inter-species cultures. Many children’s books are from animal perspectives, but there’s a fair share of adult books that are too (especially the more serious ones).

Some examples include:

– The Call of the Wild (dogs) and White Fang (wolves/dogs)

– Watership Down (rabbits, very gruesome but very well done)

-The Wind in The Willows (a variety of creatures)

– Black Beauty (horses, very realistic and based on the treatment of horses in the 1800s)

– The Tale of Desperaux (mice! utterly charming and fairytale like)

– Warrior Cats (cats, though they’re not terribly cat-like)

– Redwall (like Warriors, they’re more human-like than animal, but I do love how the animals each have their own culture, dialect and strength and weakness. The merging of animal and human is really well-done)

– Guardians of Ga’hoole (Owls! Like Redwall, it’s really, really well-done! They feel like owls and, more than many of these, are more based in actual science and observation of owls)

– Wolves of the Beyond (by the same other as above! It’s also good, but I like it a little less because the structure of the wolf packs and their culture feel less..realistic? The owls have societies and write books and all that, but are still owlish enough to feel not wholly fantastical. The wolves do feel more fantastical here, though again it’s a great series).

– The Sight (David Clement-Davies – wolves)

– The Firebringer Trilogy (Meredith Ann Pierce – one of my favorite trilogies of all time! It’s about unicorns).

– Birth of the Firebringer (David Clement-Davies – deer)

– The Named Series (Clare Bell – prehistoric creatures)

– The Wolf Chronicles (by Dorothy Hearst – guess what animal? more realistic and very well-done, a seamless mingling of fantasy and science and basically a fantasy explanation for how wolves became dogs 1400 years ago)

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I write about wolves! My particular novel is based off of real wolf packs and two wolves that traveled a thousand miles to be the first in California in a century (which, as you may have guessed, actually happened and is begging for a story). They think and feel like humans, but their physical capabilities, pack structure, etc. is more realistic. I do a lot of research (one of my favorite places for information is Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conversation which is a scientific tome solely about wolves, from social dynamics to biology to territory structure) and my aim is to make them as realistic as possible while also being relatable. Thankfully, wolves are very social, friendly and surprisingly empathetic (though as ferocious as any other predator) creatures and make for fantastic characters!

Anyone writing animal fiction? Has anyone read it? What do you think of it? How is your faith (or how have you seen faith) woven into it?