hey mediate between the natural and the supernatural world and are animals in name only." Jan goes on to say that writers of children's stories generally show animals as embodiments of "disturbing or reassuring" forces in order to allow children "to feel their way in a world of incessantly changing and elusive presences where only emotions and events remain stable" (Stott, 1984, p. 79). Cullinan and Carmichael write that "bad" or "evil" ("disturbing," in Stott's term) animals are generally destroyed or punished in children's stories, while the "good" or most vulnerable animal is rewarded in some way:
Since it is often . . . the smallest animal who succeeds in the tales, young children find comfort in knowing that in a world where it seems everyone is stronger and bigger, they can win in the end. They can expect hard work and trials of some kind, but the hope of future success sustains them (Cullinan and Carmichael, 1977, p. 86).
Sheila Burnford was born in Scotland in 1918 and educated in northern England, attending St. Georges and Harrogate College. She moved to Port Arthur in Northern Ontario, Canada, with her family after World War II, living there still today. Raising her family, Burnford began writing playscripts for the town's puppet theatre and essays and other work to such periodicals as Punch, Canadian Poetry and the Glasgow Herald. Her love of and familiarity with her own household pets inspired her first book, The Incredible Journey, which was an immediate popular, if not critical, success, and which has been translated into more than twenty languages and made into a motion picture. Other books include The Fie
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