Horton
Horton is a mild-mannered, incredibly kind, helpful elephant who became famous for taking over the job of sitting on an egg abandoned by a mother bird and staying there until it hatched into a strange bird/elephant hybrid creature. Little did anyone realize that that bizarre experience would only be a warm-up for an even more unlikely occurrence later on. Purely by random chance while in the jungle bathing one day, Horton discovers a civilization of previous unknown creatures so small their entire populous city can fit on a speck of dust. It is only through the intervention of Horton that these people are potentially saved from extinction or genocide.
The Whos
The Whos is the collective name of that civilization discovered living on a speck of dust. At first, only Horton is able to hear them though they are too small to actually see. He communicates directly with the Mayor of the city several times and while the illustrations reveal a large segment of the population, the only other major Who character is one of the smallest of them all—Jojo—who, despite his size, plays the essential role in getting the rest of the jungle to believe in the existence of the Whos.
Mother and Joey Kangaroo
A mother kangaroo and the joey still in her pouch are the first to be informed about the existence of the Whos as well as the first to disbelieve in that existence. When Horton insists that a civilization lives on the speck, both the mom and baby kangaroo reject the very notion of anyone being so small as impossible.
The Wickersham Brothers
The Wickersham Brothers are three rather malicious monkeys who don’t just refuse to believe in the existence of the Whos, but actively insist that Horton is making up the whole entire story. They lack empathy rather than possessing genuine malevolence and this absence of decency strikes out in the form of stealing the speck of dust which they do not even think contains any life anyway and giving it to a bird to take far away.
Vlad Vlad-i-koff
Vlad is the name of the bird to which the Wickershams hand over the pilfered speck of dust. He is a very big, very strong, and very black-bottomed eagle who flies far away all through the night to find a spot to drop the speck. Horton follows the bird all the way through the night and though it seems like a completely lost cause, he doesn’t give up until he finds lost speck of dust.
JoJo McDodd (Son of Ned)
JoJo is a quiet and introverted individual. Although being resourceful and witty, he's afraid of letting down his fathers dream of taking his place as the future mayor of Whoville.
Ned McDodd (The Mayor)
Ned is the father of 96 daughters and one son (JoJo). He is also the mayor of Whoville. While being as cheerful as the other citizens, he struggles with having a relationship with his son.
