Willodeen

Animals are a common feature in Katherine Applegate’s writing. Her Animorphs series, written with her husband between 1996 and 2001, features a group of young friends who transform into different animals to resist an alien invasion of Earth. Applegate’s love for animals inspired her to take up writing since the craft lets her research and explore animals most people don’t encounter in their day-to-day lives. As the Animorphs protagonists transform between human and animal forms, their perspectives likewise shift and the protagonists must balance their human minds with their new, animal instincts. The series touches on themes like morality, coming-of-age, and dehumanization. In an interview, Applegate said her goal was to instill in readers “respect and awe for the natural world” (“K.A. Applegate” Kidsreads.com).

Since then, Applegate has written several books from the perspectives of animals and plants, including The One and Only Ivan (2012) and its sequels, as well as Wishtree (2017). Applegate uses these unconventional points of view to explore nature, animals, and humanity through a unique lens. Her interest in the animal perspective deepened with her research for The One and Only Ivan. The book is told from the perspective of a gorilla who lives isolated behind glass at a mall, and it’s based on the real-life Ivan who spent 27 years similarly isolated at a circus-themed mall in Tacoma, WA. Ivan’s story caught Applegate’s attention because she felt bad for him, and the book is her take on what Ivan’s experience might have been like.

Through Ivan and the segments written from the screecher’s perspective in Willodeen, Applegate gives a voice to animals who often have their voices taken away by humans who claim they know best for all other creatures. Through her animal characters, Applegate explores the relationships between animals, nature, and humans, specifically, how humans affect animals and the environment. In The One And Only Ivan, humans took Ivan away from his natural habitat and isolated him away from his kind, creating an unnecessarily lonely existence away from where he truly belonged.

In Willodeen, Quinby is similarly taken from her natural habitat, but Willodeen intends to let Quinby decide if and when she’ll return to the wild. In Ivan’s case, humans disrupt the natural way of things. Willodeen lives in harmony with Quinby’s relationship with nature, but Willodeen’s village shows more similarities to the humans in Ivan’s tale. Rather than appreciate that screechers are part of nature and have their own job to do, they hunt screechers because their smell creates an inconvenience. No consideration is given to how that smell helps screechers survive or screechers’ role in the area’s ecosystem. For both Quinby and Ivan, the majority of humans are an obstacle to them finding their true places in the world. Above all, Applegate asserts that animals have just as much a right to the Earth as humans. She demonstrates this by dedicating Willodeen to Mother Earth, saying “Thanks for putting up with us” (i). By writing about animals and from their perspectives, she aims to inspire readers to consider their place as part of nature rather than above it.