The Wind in the Willows
The occasional barge-woman notwithstanding, Grahame’s novel excludes human characters. In contrast, Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books (1894, 1895) and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes (1914), while romanticizing animals and nature, primarily focus on orphaned humans who become exemplary figures after they are adopted by animals. The two Jungle Books, set in India, center on Mowgli, raised by wolves after his family is killed by the tiger Shere Khan. Tarzan of the Apes describes the African adventures of an orphaned British nobleman who is raised by the gentle ape Kala and becomes king of the jungle. Tarzan of the Apes was immensely popular, and Burroughs wrote more than twenty sequels. Unlike Grahame’s and Potter’s stories, the novels by London, Kipling, and Burroughs are not written for children.
Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), by A. A. Milne, one of Grahame’s biggest supporters, has become a children’s classic. Inspired by the imaginary conversations of the toys of Milne’s young son, Christopher Robin, the story follows the adventures of the lovable bear Pooh, who can’t get enough honey, his bouncy friend Tigger, the anti-social donkey Eeyore, and shy little Piglet. Like The Wind in the Willows, Winnie-the-Pooh has inspired many successful animated adaptations.
Notable animal stories for children published later in the twentieth century include Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte’s Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970), all by E. B. White; Where the Wild Things Are (1963), by Maurice Sendak; the stories of Arnold Lobel, including Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970) and Fables (1980); and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971), by Robert C. O’Brien, and Racso and the Rats of NIMH (1986), by his daughter Jane Leslie Conly.