Check with your regional SCBWI - they often have a coordinator who puts people together (with same interests/genres).

Hello, does anyone know of any PB critique groups that meet up virtually and are accepting new members? Thanks!

Write the story the way it makes the most sense to you. Illustrate it the way it makes the most sense to you.

Animals are sometimes used to avoid controversy. Animal characters can get away with things human characters can't. This happens in books with political undertones. The message slides under the radar. Sometimes animals make something funnier or more adorable because of the visuals. Sometimes the animalness is in the nature of the character as stated above. Franklyn the Turtle is a very good example here. Look at the first book, Franklyn in the Dark.

Often you can write humans and illustrate animals. That's up to you.

And to clarify, I believe the infographics show that more animal main characters appear in picture books than main characters of color. That could be a consideration if you are a person of color or other marginalized group and want to represent that.

Have fun experimenting and deciding what works best for your book.

I would say it's up to the story and personal choice.

Mary Kole wrote a general piece on this a couple years ago: https://www.goodstorycompany.com/blog/anthropomorphic-animals

Personally, I prefer it when the animals traits impact the story. e.g. if a shark saw a dentist, there are a LOT more teeth to examine.
But it's not like my kids and I didn't read a LOT of stories with anthropomorphic animals that the genesis of the MC had nothing to do with the story.

This topic has been moved to Self Publishing.

https://www.scbwi.org/boards/index.php?topic=93434.0