Peacefulpete has a point.
The Jews were not writing My Book of Bible Stories here in Genesis. This was the Torah, the Mosaic Law. Any narrative was there for the purpose of teaching the Jews the Law, not history.
This is not a collection of creation bedtime stories for Christians here, but three separate creation narratives that teach something about the Mosaic Law:
Genesis chapter 1, the First Creation Myth, teaches Jews to observe the Sabbath.
Gensis chapter 2, the Second Creation Myth, was actual the first composed and comes from folklore and from the time of the Levant and Babylon, to describe the creation of man and woman (from the Hebrew folklore) and having them assigned as caretakers of a Babyloning garden (Babylonian myth).
Genesis chapter 3, the Exile/Moses Foreshadowing, is known in Christianity as the Fall, where Adam & Eve are actually the nation of Israel that get expelled from caretakers of the Promised Land for breaking the law of God (stealing is one of the Ten Commandments/stealing from one of the trees in the king of Babylon's garden would get you expelled). Adam & Eve find themselves "east of Eden" which foreshadows the end of the Torah where Moses in Deuteronomy is "east of the Jordan," the same place the Jews are when writing these stories, "east of the Promised Land."
Talking animals in the Torah are simple Hebrewism narrative devices that indicate that the main subject is sinning in their action (for example, Balaam's donkey in Numbers 22). Both Eve and Balaam act as if animals always talk in both instances instead of acting surprised. This is because it is a narrative device. The animal isn't really talking. It is likely that the author is suggesting that a "crisis of conscience" is occuring.
Finally, note that the creation myths are put in a certain order, where man and woman are made in "God image," but in the final story, Adam and Eve in shame and guilt cover themselves and in the expulsion from Eden leave with themselves "covered," unlike the animals in Eden. This is also part of the narrative. It represents that Adam and Eve fail to be in the "image of God" when they fail to follow the Torah by "stealing" from the tree. Breaking God's law, sin, the Jews reasoned, made one fail to live up to that image. That is why at the end of the Torah, Moses does not enter the Promised Land--he failed as well by his actions.
These are but narratives, of course, but they teach lessons to the Jews on how to live up to the Law. They are not necessarily historic.