For Book Week Scotland 2022, we set out to discover Scotland's favourite animal from fiction! From nostalgic childhood favourites to new releases, the public were invited to vote on a shortlist of 30 beloved animal characters, chosen by an expert panel from a longlist created by Scottish Book Trust with help from the public.
The votes have now all been cast, and we're excited to reveal that Michael Bond's loveable and trouble-prone bear topped the poll by a sizeable margin. Paddington received 16% of the votes cast, with Judith Kerr's Mog in second place with 9.5% of the vote share. Scotland's favourite fictional animals tend towards the feline, with cats and big cats making up half of the top ten, but every character on the shortlist received at least one vote.
The top 10
- Paddington Bear, from the Paddington books by Michael Bond
- Mog, from the Mog books by Judith Kerr
- Tigger, from the Winnie-the-Pooh books by AA Milne
- Aslan, from The Chronicles of Narnia books by CS Lewis
- Charlotte, from Charlotte's Web by EB White
- Mr Fox, from Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
- Black Beauty, from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- Elmer, from the Elmer the Patchwork Elephant books by David McKee
- The Cat, from The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
- Cheshire Cat, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll