i'm looking for a story about a fox named kit who becomes involved with a cat. cut off from most of wealthy family.
i'm looking for a story about a fox named kit who becomes involved with a cat. cut off from most of wealthy family.
Kit This will take you to a .zip file of the complete story. In case the Worlds of Fel link gives you a 404 error, like it just gave me.
Thank you all you're right. I have Tarrin's on my ereader but I forgot this was one of Fel's as well.
Just as an aside, isn't it a little strange that SOL has so few animal stories? Animals with human traits has a long and storied history in literature, beyond mere children's tales, but not on SOL. That might be due to the adult content on the site, but FS doesn't have many (any?) either.
Anyone have any ideas why the genre is so unpopular here?
Historically, animals with human traits most commonly appeared in allegories and instructional stories, neither of which are particularly popular today. You could probably argue that they're not even necessary any more; the average person is sufficiently well educated that children can be taught directly rather than requiring allegories.
For example, a modern child is told to avoid strangers because there are bad people who want to hurt them, a fact made evident to any kid who has watched TV; at a time when most people lived in villages of a few hundred people, stories needed to create a real fear from a theoretical threat.
For example, a modern child is told to avoid strangers because there are bad people who want to hurt them, a fact made evident to any kid who has watched TV
Which for the most part is frightening children for no good purpose.
In the vast majority of child abductions, rapes and murders, the perpetrator is a relative or a friend of the family. Stranger danger is vastly over rated.
http://boingboing.net/2015/02/24/our-children-are-safer-than-ou.html
In short, little Suzi should be more worried about / afraid of creepy uncle Stan then any stranger.
Historically, animals with human traits most commonly appeared in allegories and instructional stories, neither of which are particularly popular today. You could probably argue that they're not even necessary any more; the average person is sufficiently well educated that children can be taught directly rather than requiring allegories.
You're missing the more obvious thing. A lot of the allegory stories shifted to a different genre. We call it science fiction. Instead of Bears(or wolves), we have Klingons. Instead of the Fox, we get the Romulans, so on and so forth.
Or you just go far future(Firefly), or alternate universe(Battlestar), and you only need humans.
Anyone have any ideas why the genre is so unpopular here?
It depends partly on what kind of animals with human traits (and what kind of human traits) you are talking about. Each is actually a separate genre.
1.
There's Furry which is non-shape shifting anthropomorphic(bipedal human/animal mix) animals
There are a lot of dedicated furry story / art sites and many
2.
Shape shifters, werecreatures of all sorts.
Many of these likely go to the furry story sites.
3.
Animals that look relatively normal but have human intelligence/motives and possibly speech.
These are simply not that popular in general.
Certainly, Dominion, but my point was that you don't need to tell a fable about a talking wolf to teach kids not to trust strangers. If you'd prefer to teach kids about more likely threats that's fine, but you'd still do it directly; I find it unlikely that you'd tell your kid about Stanley the overly touchy otter.
but my point was that you don't need to tell a fable about a talking wolf to teach kids not to trust strangers.
Your point is meaningless. They didn't need fables for that back then either.
In point of fact, fairy tales were not originally written for children. They were morality tales meant for adults and if you can find the original versions from medieval times, they usually had grisly r-rated or even x-rated endings.
The stories were sanitized and repackaged as children's stories during the renaissance period when it became unfashionable for adults to believe in magic and other supernatural things.
They have been repeatedly re-sanitized for various things that came to be viewed as inappropriate for children since.
Actually, your arguments against 'animal tales' falls flat, as most stories/novels/plays (but not movies, since most are fairly incipid), use analogies. Instead of telling a bigger story thru a simple, easy to understand analogy, novels typically tell a long, complicated story to breathe life into a central theme that lies outside the basic plot (i.e. independent of the story details).
My "Great Death" series was about continuing on even when there's little hope of success. The fact there's a plague which kills billions is, essentially, immaterial. It's the underlying message, or theme, the story is advancing. The key is to keep the theme hidden, so readers come to understand the concept without realizing they're being taught a lesson so they can't get defensive about the topic (the lesson of "Tom Sawyer" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin").
While animal stories (stories about intelligent and wily animals acting as human stand-ins) aren't terribly common, but famous works such as "Watership Down" (great book) or "Jonathon Livingston Seagull" (popular, but ultimately forgettable) or if you're into science fiction "A Young Boy and His Dog".
If anyone is interested, the proper terms are either Anthropomorphic Stories or Animal Xenofiction stories for adults. Here's a quick list of well-known titles generated by goodreads.
In my opinion, fairy tales are like myths - a way to understand and come to terms with the universe, life, society, and the human condition through analogy, as Crumbly Writer noted. Plus, today, and even more before widespread literacy, they are a form of entertainment.
According to the Wikipedia article on fairy tales, for most of history (and pre-history) they were told by adults to other adults. They didn't come to be seen as primarily a teaching tool for children till the 19th century. At that time, they were cleaned up - sex and some violence (eg, cannibalism) removed, though violence to punish villains increased.