I'm putting in an application at school to do an Independent Study. In this I will be writing a novel. As part of my proposal, I have to submit a reading list - what I will read to assist with my writing. Aside from how-to books, I need a few novels similar to my novel.

Here's my novel idea: The world is inhabited by half-animals, half-people, divided into three countries. The main character is half-butterfly, and lives in the Winged country. The novel will follow him as he falls in love, becomes involved in political movements, and works against a political conspiracy, all the while transitioning from boy to man (butterfly, man, whatever).

For fantasy worlds and politics, there's LOTR of course, and "Dune" did a great job of establishing its world and its politics. Orwell's "1984" showed politics, as well as Animal Farm, IIRC.

HP caricatured a peculiarly English flavour of politics, and "Gulliver's Travels" was a classic of political satire.

"Fahrenheit 451", Ray Bradbury. Much of Heinlein's SF had libertarian politics somewhere.

But to really learn about fantasy and politics, anything by Bush or Blair ;-)

The Uplift series by David Brin. In this, dolphins and chimps have been 'uplifted' to full human-level sentience, with genetic engineering and assistive technology (for dolpins -- to give them 'hands'). They characters still exhibit animal behaviors, but act like humans. Startide Rising has the first all-Dophin crewed starship. The Uplift War focuses on Chimps. Very good for the animal mindset.

A rough summary would be that beyond the mountains, where humans have never settled are Great Animals (I can't remember the name Lindskold give them)they are generally, large, stronger and more intelligent than their cousins in the human lands. The even have language. A failed settling attempt ends in death for all the villagers save a baby girl who ends up being raised by wolves. Eventually, she heads back across the mountains.

The first couple books address the integration of an essentially wild animal into a completely different society (in this case, human). But it gives a fair estimation of how a wolf thinks, and in later books the thoughts of other animals, but the other books drift from the quality of the first 2.

It might be beneficial for you to look at how an animal or even half-animal might think. That is going to be key I think to making your story strong, making the MC feel real.