Guinea Pig Fiction

Jemima Pett has been writing fictional stories about her guinea pigs for many years.

Apart from the Princelings of the East series, there are short stories featuring the boys on Jemima’s blog, such as those listed below. Her guinea pigs have their own blog at George’s Guinea Pig World.

Animal protagonists

Recently someone commented about promoting them to the fur-loving community.  Further investigations suggested that the bias against anthropomorphism in fiction had reduced or even disappeared, and a whole section of the world-wide community likes fiction with animal protagonists.

So we’ve come out of the closet, to those who like to know whether the Princelings stories are about people or guinea pigs to say:

…they are who you want them to be.

For me, the characters are the guinea pigs as people.  For others, you should be able to read them just as human people if you prefer.

But as the Princelings series finishes, I’m thinking of other fictional projects.

What comes next?

messenger misadventures

The original covers of Dylan and Dougall’s stories clearly demonstrated they were guinea pig heroes.  These are now collected together, and introduce Deirdre, the daughter of the smith of Castle Haunn.

The Messenger Misadventures: the Dylan, Deirdre and Dougall collection

I have other, more realistic stories in mind, set in a human-dominated world.  These would be more in the line of the Rats of NIMH or Fantastic Mr Fox.

Neville and Roscoe

The first of these is a book for six and seven year olds (Key Stage 1 in the UK education system), ISBN 9798211034389.

Roscoe and Neville find a way out of their cosy home and explore the open land on the other side of the road. Danger, mishap and new friends await!

This is fully illustrated (almost one per double-page) and is suitable for the age group (tested by Seren and her friends). A second volume is in preparation, but both are only available direct from Blurb.com as paperbacks. Or at the Craft Fairs I go to (check the news section).

Lists

Meanwhile check out some of these sites, with the warning that you may not be able to get all of the titles they mention internationally.

List of guinea pigs in fiction (Australian site)

Guinea Pigs online (Fantastic Fiction site)

For Goodreads members a list of guinea pig books for younger children

My Dylan and Dougall books are really for the 8-12 age group, the ones in the Princelings series are for 9-15 or older.

Jemima’s guinea pig short stories

critters and crises

These are more for a grown-up audience. Younger people might need a little parental guidance, since some go into mild horror.

  • Daucus Carota Gigantica
  • The Moon was a Witness
  • Out of the Frying Pan

All three are included in the first of my flash fiction collections: Critters and Crises. It’s available at Amazon and all other ebook retailers.