Talking Animals: Realistic or Fantasy?

Charlotte of Charlotte's Library raised an interesting question after I nominated Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright's The Cheshire Cheese Cat for the Cybil's middle grade fiction catagory. Asks Charlotte, "… when is a book with sentient animals acting as Persons and effecting the course of human events fantasy?"

I immediately apologized, writing, "My bad. I've been thinking about Cheshire Cheese Cat in terms of Newbery and was focusing on age and content not genre. You are absolutely...