Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
2024
Journal / Book Title
Thinking in Stories: Reviewing Philosophy in Children's Literature
Abstract
This little-known book by Margaret Wise Brown follows a boy as he watches animals in a zoo, first just observing, then having fantasies about them: of putting squirrels in his pocket, lying down beside the panda, hugging the polar bear. But he always interrupts his fantasy: the squirrel wouldn’t like to be put in a pocket; he knows better than to lie down next to a panda or to hug a polar bear. The Big Fur Secret is importantly about animals, and about zoos, and about the ways people integrate defenseless beings into their projects and plots. But it is also about consciousness in a more general way: it encourages the reader (or listener) to stop short of speaking for somebody (or something) else – to hold on to the idea that how it is for us may be quite different from how it is for them.
Book Publisher
Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Shea, Peter, "(2024) The Big Fur Secret (1944) by Margaret Wise Brown" (2024). Collected Papers of Peter Shea. 13.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/iapc_pshea/13