Talking animals in fiction Talking animals in fiction Talking animals are a common theme in mythology and folk tales, as well as children's literature. Fictional talking animals often are anthropomorphic, possessing human-like qualities but appearing as a creature. The usage of talking animals enable storytellers to combine the basic characteristics of the animal with human behavior, to apply metaphor, and to entertain children. There are a number of alleged real-life talking animals. The creature retains its original form without much change, other than being able to speak. Sometimes it may only speak as a narration for the reader's convenience. The rabbits in "Watership Down"
Watership Down Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a similar award that authors may not win twice. In 1977 California schoolchildren selected it for the inaugural California Young Reader Medal in the Young Adult category, which annually honours one book from the last four years. In The Big Read, a 2003 survey of the British public, it was voted the forty-second greatest book of all time. The 1993 Puffin Modern Classics edition of the novel contains an afterword by Nicholas Tucker, who wrote that stories such as "Watership Down" "now fit rather uneasily into the modern world of consideration of both sexes". He contrasted