"One Day You and I Will Let Them All OUT": Attitudes Toward Animals in Hilary McKay's Fiction

Relationships between human and nonhuman animals are ubiquitous in children's literature, including anthropomorphized representations and depictions of pets, livestock, and wildlife. A critical animal studies perspective explores the relationship between human and nonhuman animals in fiction with the ideal that nonhuman animal characters have agency, goals, and identity comparable to human characters. This essay explores how the interactions between human and nonhuman characters in the middle grades fiction of award-winning British novelist Hilary McKay can be understood through a critical animal studies lens, focusing on McKay's use of animals to show growth and development in her human characters.