Leaf Boat

In a show that has Talking Animals or Funny Animals, with the animal characters mainly being mice, birds, lizards, moles, etc., sometimes you can expect there to be a body of water like rivers, lakes or ponds as the setting. The best way for these animals to have transportation is to use a leaf as a boat in order to travel from place to place.

Put bluntly, this is a trope in which an animal character will use a leaf which acts like a boat. It can also be used in fairy tales as well as being a common motif in any tale or art to do with little people like the fey/fairies.

See also: Lily Pad Platform. Often seen in Mouse World settings.

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Examples of Leaf Boat include:

Animated Films

• The Rescuers: Bernard and Bianca use a large leaf propelled by Evinrude the dragonfly in order to find and rescue Penny.
• This was used once in Antz.
• In Fun and Fancy Free, Mickey, Donald and Goofy cross the giant's moat on a giant leaf.
• Woodstock had one in Race for Your Life Charlie Brown.
• In The Princess and the Frog, Ray goes out on the bayou in one of these during his funeral.

Comic Books

• In Mouse Guard, Sadie uses one to travel to Calogero.

Fairy Tales

• Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina is probably the Ur Example.

Literature

• The elven boats in The Lord of the Rings, while not literally made of leaves, use this as a visual motif.
• In Tad Williams' Otherland series, the heroes' boat turns into a leaf when they travel into a simulation in which they're smaller than the local insects.

Video Games

• In The Legend of Zelda the Minish Cap, while Link is tiny, he can go on top of a leaf and use his Gust Jar to propel himself across the body of water.
• Used in the Lost Woods dungeon of Dark Cloud to go to a hidden bonus dungeon.

Real Life

• Some types of Ants use leaves to cross streams.