An Octopus Followed Me Home is a 1997 children's

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 picture book

Picture book

A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil.Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now...

 by American writer and illustrator Dan Yaccarino

Dan Yaccarino

Dan Yaccarino is an American author, illustrator and television producer known for his animated television series, children’s books and award-winning imagery....

. The book has been adapted by Yaccarino into an animated TV series called Willa's Wild Life

Willa's Wild Life

Willa's Wild Life is an animated television series that first aired on ABC2 in 2008, then on Qubo and Nickelodeon Canada in 2009. The show is based on Dan Yaccarino's book An Octopus Followed Me Home. It is about a 9 year old girl named Willa who has some very unusual pets...

. It is directed by Steve Sullivan.

Plot

The book tells of a young girl who takes a green

Green

Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...

 octopus

Octopus

The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...

 home. When the girl asks her father if she can keep the octopus in the tub

Bathtub

A bath , bathtub , or tub is a large container for holding water in which a person may bathe . Most modern bathtubs are made of acrylic or fiberglass, but alternatives are available in enamel over steel or cast iron, and occasionally waterproof finished wood...

, he tells her about all the other animals he let her keep and all the sacrifices he made. The saddened girl returns the octopus back to the ocean

Ocean

An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...

, but becomes happy again when a gray brachiosaurus

Brachiosaurus

Brachiosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America. It was first described by Elmer S. Riggs in 1903 from fossils found in the Grand River Canyon of western Colorado, in the United States. Riggs named the dinosaur Brachiosaurus altithorax,...

 follows her home.

Characters

• The Girl is the main character of the book. The Girl had an octopus follow her home after school. Before the octopus followed her home, many other animals followed her home. For instance a giraffe
  Giraffe
  The giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant...
  
  , an ostrich
  Ostrich
  The Ostrich is one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio. Some analyses indicate that the Somali Ostrich may be better considered a full species apart from the Common Ostrich, but most taxonomists consider it to be a...
  
  , a million rabbits, and other animals followed her home. The Girl's name is never mentioned in the book.
• Dad is The Girl's father. Dad doesn't like the animals The Girl brings home around the house, but, knowing how much The Girl loves them, he lets her keep them. When The Girl brings the octopus home, Dad becomes tired of sacrificing and tells her to return the octopus to its original home.
• The Octopus is the octopus that follows The Girl home. At the beginning of the book, The Girl asked her father if she can keep him in the bathtub. Her father tells The Girl to return The Octopus to the sea. The Octopus becomes sad when he goes back to his real home.
• The Crocodile is one of the animals that followed The Girl home. The Crocodile sleeps under Dad's bed, and won't let him sleep at all.
• The Giraffe is one of the other animals that followed The Girl home. Whenever The Girl goes to school, The Giraffe says good-bye with its head sticking out of the chimney
  Chimney
  A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...
  
  .
• The Bear is a grizzly bear
  Grizzly Bear
  The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...
  
   that is hibernating in the living room behind the couch.
• The Rabbits are a group of thousands of gray, orange, and white rabbits that multiply everyday.
• The Branchiosaurus is a gray branchiosaurus that follows The Girl home at the end of the book.
• The Ostrich is an ostrich
  Ostrich
  The Ostrich is one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio. Some analyses indicate that the Somali Ostrich may be better considered a full species apart from the Common Ostrich, but most taxonomists consider it to be a...
  
   that is seen in the beginning having its head stuck in the opening of the kitchen drain.
• The Tiger is a tiger
  Tiger
  The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
  
  seen in the beginning outside in the lawn while Dad is mowing.