Having just finished writing an animal-narrated book, in which the main character is a feisty, curious weka hen on an adventure. It occured to me that I cannot, offhand, think of any others with a female protagonist. I read a lot of these in my younger days, so am sure there must be at least one or two that I've forgotten. In every single one I own, the main characters are male. The only exception that springs to mind is some of the Duncton Wood tales and the Wolves of Time (and it's been years since I read them) which I believe have the occasional female protagnist. Ones I own: Watership Down (rabbits) Beak of the Moon (keas - a type of native parrot) Call of the Kotuku (heron) Sil (tui, a native songbird) Midnight's Sun (wolves) Golden Cat/Wild Road (cats) Hunter's Moon (foxes) House of Tribes (mice) Lost Domain (owls) Tailchasers Song (cats) In the Long Dark (cats) The Plague Dogs (dogs) I'm not talking about anthropromophic ones here - those that look like animals but act more like humans (such as the Redwall series, the Welkin Weasels, the Deptford Mice or Mrs Frisby*) but the ones which are essentially animals with increased sentience (or not, as the case may be). * Which is pretty much the only one that immediately springs to mind as "Female protagonist", and is borderline realistic. Some of the Deptford Mice/Redwall ones have a female hero. So, any suggestions on ones of these I might just HAVE to read?
Read the Werecat books. It's about a girl who's sort of like a werewolf but she's a cat instead of a wolf. She has a fierce, independent personality that I can relate to and love.
Sounds interesting, but I'm more thinking about ones where they're "real" animals - just a wee bit smarter. That might be a nice alternative to some of the recent paranormal stuf fI've been reading though.
Yup, you're right. I've been thinking about this, and all I could come up with is Charlotte's Web (well, arachnid, though not sure if you're talking mammals only) -- and then I realized the protagonist was Wilbur, so there again is a male animal protagonist. Weird. I wonder why no females.
There's, The Sight by David Clement-Davies about a female wolf and her brother. I haven't read it but remember the sysnopsis intrigued me. There's also a sequel that I think focuses on the brother.
Oh I've read the Sight, it was quite good! Another one is Promise of Wolves. Okay, so books with wolves often have female protagonists. Odd that!
It's nice to hear it's a good book. Did you read the sequel too? I think I'll probably pick up either, "sight" or the author's other book, "firebringer" sometime. They do sound very tempting and I do love an animal protagonist story.
"Firebringer" was quite nifty, I actually stole plot points from it for my Pokemon PBeM game, way back when. I never read the sequel to "The Sight" - I never found it here.
