DescriptionAnthropomorphism, the attribution of human characteristics to non-human entities, has long been a staple of children’s media. However, little research has directly measured the effect of anthropomorphism on children’s developing conceptual knowledge about animals. How does seeing a dancing, talking bear that lives in a house impact children’s understanding of biological and psychological properties of real bears? In Studies 1 and 2, the use of anthropomorphism in popular children’s television and storybooks was analyzed. In Study 3, parents reported on their children’s actual exposure to and preference for anthropomorphic media, verifying the findings in Studies 1 and 2. In Study 4, a parent-child storybook reading paradigm explored parent’s own use of biological and social language to explain biological properties to their children. Finally, in Study 5 we experimentally examined the impact of anthropomorphic language and/or pictures in storybooks on children’s anthropocentrism and learning about biological properties. Contrary to previous research, storybooks with anthropomorphic pictures led to an increase in children’s willingness to project a novel biological property from both humans and animals to other animals, thus decreasing anthropocentrism. Boys who were read a storybook with anthropomorphic pictures showed the highest performance on a generalization task. Additionally, both boys and girls provided higher-level explanations about the biological property after being read an anthropomorphic storybook. Thus, anthropomorphic media may actually help children learn by increasing similarities between humans and animals. Suggestions for future research are discussed. The current research sheds important light on the educational implications of anthropomorphism in children’s media, parent-child interaction, early childhood science education, and the development of children’s biological concepts.