Book-Famous Animals for Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. And this week’s topic is just about any spin-off on books with animals.

So I decided to spotlight book-famous animals who may not be the heroes or their typical sidekicks, but who are pretty integral to the hero’s journey. Here goes the list!

1] Tsornin in The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

A valiant horse for a valiant lady. Wars are won all thanks to this handsome chestnut stallion, whose name literally means “Sungold”.

2] Richard Parker in Life of Pi by Yann Martel

When you are stranded on a boat in the high seas with no company except a hungry tiger, what do you do? You call him Richard Parker.

3] Fern in We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Families don’t run on blood alone. Rosemary finds her sister in Fern, a chimpanzee with whom she grew up.

4] Haner in Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

Many books have been written about dragons. But how about a dragon that won’t blush in this Austen-like social satire?

5] Nawat in Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce

Nawat is a crow who is turned into man by the gods. As such, he does many odd crow-like things. And he finds humans too very, very odd.

6] Charles Cornick in Alpha & Omega Series by Patricia Briggs

Charles is a shape-shifter, whose human half resides with Brother Wolf. Seriously, nobody does (were)wolf pack dynamics better than Briggs.

7] The Parrot in (Tintin &) The Castafiore Emerald

Billions of blue blistering barnacles! I love this pet parrot owned by opera singer Madam Castafiore and reviled by my beloved colorful-swearing Captain Haddock.

8] Lying Cat in Saga Series by Brian Vaughan & Fiona Staples

It would be very useful to have a truth-detector cat as your sidekick. Even though the cat is blue in color and speaks only one word: “Lying!”

9] March Hare in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Oh, him and his watch! If only Alice hadn’t seen him, she would never have gone down that particular rabbit hole.

10] Fantastic Mr. Fox, in a book of his own by Roald Dahl

Mr. Fox is a reformed swindler, who decides one day to give up on the “reformed” part. Mighty bad habit for a fox to not steal, you know.

So, who are your favorite book-famous animals?