A common feature found in many of children’s storybooks is the presence of anthropomorphic (attributing human characteristics to non-humans) animals. This feature is mostly used to help convey a message to children, such as a moral lesson. My research will examine whether animals with human attributes (AHA) or human characters in storybooks better promote learning in children. There is much research concerning the factors that influence how children learn, and a growing debate on how the context of a story and its presentation influence children’s learning of story content. It is possible that children’s preferences for fantastical versus realistic stories also influences their ability to learn from them. I hypothesize that children who have a preference for fantastical stories will learn better from stories with AHA than from those with humans as the main characters. Children with no preference will learn better from stories with human characters than those with AHA.

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