Animal House LEGO Construction part 2

Animal House LEGO Construction

Your Guide to the Animals in ANIMAL HOUSE part 2

More guides to the busier spreads in ANIMAL HOUSE.

Pages 17-18

Pages 28-29

Pages 29-30

I was always a sucker for a guide diagram. I especially like the ones where the shapes are numbered. These ones are simpler--so you don't have to look up each number

Your Guide to the Animals in ANIMAL HOUSE part 1

In ANIMAL HOUSE, there are many animals who aren't mentioned in the text, but who still follow the animal word-play format. In the back of the book, an online guide is promised. All of the unnamed animals can be found in the endpapers--but where are they in the book? Here's how you find them:

Pages 9-10


Pages 11-12


Page 14


"But," you say, "these are no fun without the book!" Then I say, "Go buy the book! Or tell your library to buy the book."

When I finish the guide, I'll put these on the Activities sidebar with the Rapunzel paper Dolls (and, ouch! I haven't put the Calamity Jack paper dolls over there yet! I'll get those over there too. You can find them in the archive--but it would be better if they were in the Activities sidebar.)

Animal House Family Portraits

Now that the guessing game is over, I thought I'd show you everyone all at once. Here are all the creatures from the game, plus a few more. That said, these are less than half of the creatures that show up in the story.

As you can see, last Friday's answers were a Rack-coon, a BiVo (TiVo) and a RayStation (RayStation 2, to be exact--that was a great system.)

Starting tomorrow I'll be posting a key to the animals in each illustration (as promised in the back of the book.)

The LEGO Animal House is still under construction, but I'm hoping to have images of it up this week (maybe next) The Gorvilla foundation is laid in, the Gabull wing is complete and the Giroof is partially assembled. It is coming together.

Animal House Guessing Game #13--the FINAL!

Here it is! The FINAL Animal House guessing game post! It's got three animals, you may guess one, but can you guess all three? This one's tough! Do your best!

Yesterday's was a "COWch!"

Have a great weekend!

Animal House Guessing Game #12

Okay, this is the second to last entry in our guessing game. Easy animal, easy house-hold item (even if it is a little hard to spot.) Hint: One syllable. Any guesses from some of the younger readers out there?

Yesterday wasn't too tricky, a few of you got it spot on; the "Kangaroom."

We'll close the guessing game tomorrow, with the hardest puzzle yet!

Animal House Guessing Game #11

This one's another principal character in the book.

Yesterday, the trickiest, hardest one yet, was the "Big Bed Wolf." See, we cheated a bit (that one was mine.)

Animal House Guessing Game #10

Today is launch day! ANIMAL HOUSE is now out!

Now, there's a caveat, most picture books aren't like your Harry Potter, day and date, ready in stores on launch-day books. They'll get to your local bookstore eventually. Make sure to ask your store to get ANIMAL HOUSE! But if you got it online, your Amazon pre-order ships today!

Today's animal is very, very tricky. It doesn't follow the rules of all the other wordplay names--good luck, it's maybe the most difficult one yet.

Yesterday's critter was the "Quailt." Get it? Quilt + Quail.

Animal House Guessing Game #9

We've got another week of ANIMAL HOUSE animals! More puns! More Guessing game! More animal/furniture hybrid fun!

Easy to guess this animal, harder to come up with the house-hold item.

Friday's animal was the "Boar-way."

Animal House Guessing Game #8

Another tricky one with more animal than house.

Yesterday was the "Hare-way." Yeah, a stretch, but I love the square bunny steps.

Have a good weekend!

Animal House Guessing Game #7

Here's another tricky one. These come in multiples.

You may notice that some of these animal names are more of a stretch than others. The good, sharp ones come from the author, Candace Ryan's original manuscript. The goofy, hard to pronounce ones come from me. See, when I started illustrations for this book, I just made furniture with animal features willy-nilly. But our ever-watchful editor pointed out that ALL the creatures who appear in the book should have a word-play name, even if they aren't named in the story. This is one of those.

Yesterday was that lovable chum, the "Refridgergator."

Animal House Guessing Game #6

This one's a little trickier, since you can't quite see the furniture item, just the animal's head. Guesses?

This creature is actually a central character in the story!

Yesterday was, drum-roll, a "Back Perch," and a "Bear-B-Que."

Animal House Guessing Game #5

Two-for Tuesday! This one's a double. Hint, we're looking at the exterior of the ANIMAL HOUSE. We're naming the large, scaley, green creature and the small, square critter--not the large, dark gray wall behind them. That is the Gorvilla's behind--we don't need to name that. Of course, you can if you want.

Yesterday was, of course, the "Re-mole Control."

Animal House Guessing Game #4

We'll start the week off with an easy, slow pitch.

But as always, variations and puns on the theme are welcome.

Friday's creature was a "Laundry Hampster" or simply a "Hampster."

Animal House Guessing Game #3

This one's a mammal.

By the way, if you are worried that these images are spoiling the book, don't. The only thing I'm spoiling here is the book's endpaper, which features rows of these little portraits complete with each critter's name. To discover the true secrets of the ANIMAL HOUSE, you have to purchase your own copy of ANIMAL HOUSE.

Yesterday's creature was a Mi-CROW-wave.

Animal House Guessing Game #2

This one's easy. But I'd like to hear what alternates you can come up with. There were so many clever names thrown out yesterday. And your animal/furniture/hybrid names are killing me-- Zoolodgisms, Faunature!? Too funny!

Yesterday's correct names were: Gorvilla, Chimpney, Gabull, Condoor, Windodo, Welcome-Bat, Snailbox and Giroof! Great guesses all around.

Animal House Month Begins!

I've got a new book coming out this month; ANIMAL HOUSE written by Candace Ryan, and illustrated by me. It comes out July 20th from Walker Books--you can see it on Amazon by clicking my link to the right, or by clicking here. It is the story of a family who lives in a house made of animals (there are even a few pinnipeds in it!)

This is the cover art--minus the title and author/illustrator attributions. And as you can read on the sign, the house is a Gorvilla. Get it? Everything on or inside the house is an animal, and every animal has a word-play name that describes it's purpose, like Gorvilla (Gorilla + Villa = Gorvilla.) There are eight animal/word-play/house items on this cover, including the Gorvilla. Can you name them all?

And I'll give bonus points to anyone who can coin a term for these animal/wordplay/house-items. Furnimals? Animobjects? Biodomicilians?

There will be a lot of animal/word-play/house-item guessing games this month, so get your wordplay hats on. Also, construction has begun on a LEGO ANIMAL HOUSE. It covers four large green "Lego ground plates" four! Hopefully I'll have it finished by the 20th when the book launches.

Here we go!

Pinniped Party 2 The End

A whole new thing starts tomorrow! What will it be?

Happy Belated Fourth of July!

Last Fourth of July, we got a visit from a very patriotic Rapunzel, see her here if you missed it. I thought I'd do that again, bring back a beloved character in a patriotic post for the holiday. So, with that in mind, here are some old friends form February's Picture Book Marathon:

That's right, the beans are back! No, they aren't quite Rapunzel, no they didn't ever get more than a one-day post, but look at them, waving their cute little flags--they're so patriotic!

Remember, fried beans are good, refried beans are even better, but RE-refried beans WILL KILL YOU!

Pinniped Party 2 part Twenty

Pinniped Party 2 part Nineteen