Will Children’s Book Publisher Use Personal Pronouns for Animals?

For Immediate Release:

26 June 2019

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

WILL CHILDREN’S BOOK PUBLISHER USE PERSONAL PRONOUNS FOR ANIMALS?

PETA Asks Usborne Publishing to Foster Empathy for Animals in Young Readers by Updating Popular Series With Inclusive Language

London – PETA sent a letter requesting that London-based Usborne Publishing modernise the language in its beloved children’s book series That’s Not My … to refer to animals (who are living, feeling individuals) as “he” or “she” instead of using the inanimate pronoun “it”.

“Words matter, and referring to animals as objects only serves to widen the perceived but nonexistent gulf between us and them,” says PETA Director Elisa Allen. “PETA is encouraging this leader in children’s literature to do right by animals and young readers by using language that shows respect for every living, feeling being.”

Just last year, PETA US – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – encouraged people to consider the power of words through a viral campaign aiming to end the use of idioms connoting cruelty to animals. PETA and its affiliates oppose speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview.

PETA’s letter to Usborne Publishing is available here. For more information and ways to help animals, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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