Children can have indirect contact with animals daily through media, such as picture books. Picture books can enrich children’s imaginary world and help them develop an adaptive life that can cope with various experiences. Because anthropomorphic animals in picture books are a typical fantasy, they may contribute to the development of relationships between children and animals. Previous studies have mainly focused on children and anthropomorphic animals in picture books using qualitative or case-study methods. This study quantitatively examined the appearance of anthropomorphic animals in picture books by categorizing them by species (animal kinds). In 1,386 picture books, 178 species of anthropomorphic animals appeared. The most frequently depicted animals were, in order, rabbits, mice, and bears. The protagonists were often anthropomorphic animals, children and males. Different species of anthropomorphic animals had different characteristics in their sex and roles. Many picture books depicted bears, dogs, and foxes as males and rabbits and pigs as females. Bears were more likely to be protagonists, squirrels and foxes were less likely to be protagonists, and cats were less likely to act as supporting characters. These results reveal that children see various kinds of anthropomorphic animals in picture books, and that anthropomorphic animals in picture books reflect social images of animals and the history of human-animal interactions.
| Published in | International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 6) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11 |
| Page(s) | 308-315 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Anthropomorphic Animals, Child Development, Depiction of Animals, Human-animal Interactions, Picture Books
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APA Style
Kanae Hara, Naoko Koda. (2020). Quantitative Analysis of Anthropomorphic Animals in Picture Books: Roles and Features of Animals. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(6), 308-315. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11
ACS Style
Kanae Hara; Naoko Koda. Quantitative Analysis of Anthropomorphic Animals in Picture Books: Roles and Features of Animals. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(6), 308-315. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11
AMA Style
Kanae Hara, Naoko Koda. Quantitative Analysis of Anthropomorphic Animals in Picture Books: Roles and Features of Animals. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(6):308-315. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11,
author = {Kanae Hara and Naoko Koda},
title = {Quantitative Analysis of Anthropomorphic Animals in Picture Books: Roles and Features of Animals},
journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
volume = {8},
number = {6},
pages = {308-315},
doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200806.11},
abstract = {Children can have indirect contact with animals daily through media, such as picture books. Picture books can enrich children’s imaginary world and help them develop an adaptive life that can cope with various experiences. Because anthropomorphic animals in picture books are a typical fantasy, they may contribute to the development of relationships between children and animals. Previous studies have mainly focused on children and anthropomorphic animals in picture books using qualitative or case-study methods. This study quantitatively examined the appearance of anthropomorphic animals in picture books by categorizing them by species (animal kinds). In 1,386 picture books, 178 species of anthropomorphic animals appeared. The most frequently depicted animals were, in order, rabbits, mice, and bears. The protagonists were often anthropomorphic animals, children and males. Different species of anthropomorphic animals had different characteristics in their sex and roles. Many picture books depicted bears, dogs, and foxes as males and rabbits and pigs as females. Bears were more likely to be protagonists, squirrels and foxes were less likely to be protagonists, and cats were less likely to act as supporting characters. These results reveal that children see various kinds of anthropomorphic animals in picture books, and that anthropomorphic animals in picture books reflect social images of animals and the history of human-animal interactions.},
year = {2020}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Quantitative Analysis of Anthropomorphic Animals in Picture Books: Roles and Features of Animals AU - Kanae Hara AU - Naoko Koda Y1 - 2020/11/19 PY - 2020 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11 DO - 10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11 T2 - International Journal of Literature and Arts JF - International Journal of Literature and Arts JO - International Journal of Literature and Arts SP - 308 EP - 315 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2331-057X UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200806.11 AB - Children can have indirect contact with animals daily through media, such as picture books. Picture books can enrich children’s imaginary world and help them develop an adaptive life that can cope with various experiences. Because anthropomorphic animals in picture books are a typical fantasy, they may contribute to the development of relationships between children and animals. Previous studies have mainly focused on children and anthropomorphic animals in picture books using qualitative or case-study methods. This study quantitatively examined the appearance of anthropomorphic animals in picture books by categorizing them by species (animal kinds). In 1,386 picture books, 178 species of anthropomorphic animals appeared. The most frequently depicted animals were, in order, rabbits, mice, and bears. The protagonists were often anthropomorphic animals, children and males. Different species of anthropomorphic animals had different characteristics in their sex and roles. Many picture books depicted bears, dogs, and foxes as males and rabbits and pigs as females. Bears were more likely to be protagonists, squirrels and foxes were less likely to be protagonists, and cats were less likely to act as supporting characters. These results reveal that children see various kinds of anthropomorphic animals in picture books, and that anthropomorphic animals in picture books reflect social images of animals and the history of human-animal interactions. VL - 8 IS - 6 ER -
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