Confession: I love stories that anthropomorphize animals. Pictures of small cottages with acorn cap cups and matchbox beds, tiny vests and bonnets made of leaves—it’s sooo satisfying to see them brought to life through illustrations.
It’s certainly not science, and there are those who maintain that anthropomorphizing is confusing for kids, that it’s trying to fit animals into a human-centric mold, and that it disconnects us from the realities of nature.
In some ways, this might be true! I once had a student who thought rabbits ate field mice (a la the Little Bunny Foo Foo song. They bop the field mice on the head, remember?) I certainly can see how anthropomorphizing could be counter-productive in many ways.
But the reason I love stories about animals who live like humans is that, for me, the natural world is already a world of imagination; mythic, mystical, and mysterious. I’ve been enchanted by the stories of animals who live in tiny cottages, and I’m just as enchanted when I learn real life information about how the creatures around me live. The ovenbird nest looks just like a real oven? How amazing! The bowerbird creates a carefully designed and colorful foyer to entice guests? Of course they do!
So maybe anthropomorphizing isn’t just us trying to make animals more human, but also a way to see how closely related we actually are. It doesn’t seem so ridiculous when we hear about how ravens understand cause and effect, or how chickadees have such good memories that they remember where thousands of individual seeds are hidden, or how dolphins and whales are likely more emotionally advanced than humans.
Nature does not need to anthropomorphized—it’s plenty interesting and unbelievable and mind-blowing as it is. But weaving in wonder, myth, and imagination can be one way to grow our relationship with the more-than-human.