ABSTRACT
The animals and other content of children's stories may relate primarily to a child's internal emotional life, to experiences otherwise ethereal and incomprehensible. Animal stories appeal to the unconscious and the conscious at the same time, so that contradictions coexist, unlike in the "real" world where the child has to be only good, only loving. The stage theories of development, most notably the psychoanalytic perspective of Sigmund Freud, and the cognitive developmental scheme of J. Piaget, both serve as backdrop to the literature of children. Children respond consciously and unconsciously to the symbolic meanings of animals presented in stories; these symbolic themes encapsulate unresolved issues for which there is no immediate mastery. The illustrations prevent that, keeping us to a predetermined story line with the containment of illustrations. The illustration of the animal groom is usually as a disgusting or ferocious animal such as Beauty and the Beast, Snow-White and Rose-Red, The Frog King, and The Princess and the Frog.
