A study of animal characters as representations of humans: the animality/bibliotherapy test. Issue 2 (3rd April 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Suvilehto, Pirjo
• Is Part Of: Journal of poetry therapy. Volume 32:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 95
• Page End: 108
• Publication Date: 2019-04-03
• Subjects: Animality/bibliotherapy test -- bibliotherapy -- non-human animal (representations) -- picture book; Poetry -- Therapeutic use -- Periodicals; 615.8516
• DOI: 10.1080/08893675.2019.1583414
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0889-3675

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Anthropomorphic animal characters have a symbolic role in stories, toys, and in children's literature. These non-human animals may serve as a symbolic role model for a child. When books confront issues that are relevant to a child's life situation and may be worthy of discussion between a child and an adult, the concept of bibliotherapy deserves consideration. Bibliotherapy is defined as the healing potential of stories. An animal character in a story may serve as a "silent fellow traveler" for a child who is dealing with an urgent developmental or disturbing task. This study considers a theory of bibliotherapy as an approach for studying a picture book. An analysis method was created to study the content and animal characters. The method and theory are based on bibliotherapy and its benefits as a tool for evaluating the possibilities of picture books.