It’s been a blast working on the “My Favorite Animals ABC” book and blog. I’ve had so much fun bringing you on this journey to explore some of the wild and wonderful animals in creation. Recently, I’ve had a hankering to explore more of the weird and wonderful creatures of the world, and I’ve been struck by the many colors present in nature. That’s why I’ve decided to begin writing a new book!
This new book will be themed around various colors in the animal kingdom. Each section will feature four animals of each color; one mammal, one bird, one reptile or fish, and one amphibian. Some colors are more common in some types of animals than others, but there is a creature of every color in each of those categories! Yes, even blue, purple, and green. Part of the inspiration for this theme was wondering whether Okapi’s were the only purple furred animal. While they don’t have bright purple fur, more of a purplish-black which some might consider a stretch, It’s still an unusual trait for an animal to have. Turns out there’s one other animal with purplish fur, the Indian giant squirrel has an even more purple coat. This theme allows us to explore even more cool and unique creatures of all kinds!
I’ve decided to officially make the next book’s poems limericks. The previous book’s poems were practically already limericks so I decided to simply add one more line to the pattern and adopt that style of poem.
In keeping with the spirit of the scavenger hunt from the last book, but trying to keep it easy to read to overeager kids, I plan to have puzzles in the book. I found that kids absolutely loved the scavenger hunt, but it made reading to a group difficult. Hopefully as I test things out I’ll be able to keep a balance between fun activity and reading that keeps sharing easy while keeping the fun going!
I went through a few ideas as I was brainstorming that I had to scrap before finally deciding on the theme of this book. The idea started as an idea for making a counting book. My first thought was to keep doing unusual animals and simply have the number be the number of animals on the page. However, there are so many interesting animals, that attempting to decide which animals to do on which page without any direction to start in was a daunting task. I then noticed the number two looks like the neck of some waterfowl, and thought “what if I made the numbers into animals?” I made a bit of concept art for these to see if it was a good idea:
The bright colors of these number-creatures made me think about the bright colors of the animal world. After finding a few wonderful creatures that belonged to different colors, and coming up with a clear idea for how the pages would be laid out, the decision to make a color-themed book was finalized!
I’ll be keeping you updated here on the blog as things progress. Thanks for all the support!
My Favorite Animals ABC 