book-themed animal crossing islands ft. cossette!

Hi everyone!

In honour of our Animal Crossing readathon coming to an end, my lovely friend Cossette @ teatimelit and I thought it would be fun to do a little Animal Crossing challenge!

This challenge involved us making book-themed builds in the game Animal Crossing. We each picked two random items (making it four in total) and then, using the objects, had to recreate a scene or atmosphere from a book on our Animal Crossing islands. So, with a total of four objects (the fortune teller set, the wooden bookshelf, the serving cart, and the afternoon tea set), we each made four different book-inspired builds.

Below you’ll see the four scenes I made that included the items. Make sure to check out Cossette’s post to see what she made!

Fortune Teller Set

For the item “fortune teller set”, I immediately thought of my favourite series, The Raven Cycle. While a crystal ball isn’t used in the series, tarot cards are used a lot. All the main characters have tarot cards that align with them, so I thought it was a good fit for this.

The setting I went for is the main room in 300 Fox Way, the house where all the psychics in the story live, and where our protagonist Blue lives and where her family have their sessions. This is basically how I imagined the set up when I first read the novel – the characters would sit in a darkly lit room around a table while the psychics drew their tarot cards. I tried to make it quaint and homey, while still keeping some of its mystique.

Serving Cart

When I saw the serving cart, my immediate thought went to A Cuban’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. In the novel, our main character is passionate about baking, and during her time in Winchester she spends a lot of time baking for the guests staying at her aunt’s inn.

I thought the serving cart would be a good fit as I can imagine they are bringing those desserts to the guests using something along the lines of that. I put it in the kitchen, since Lila (the protagonist) loves to spend time baking, I wanted to set this in the kitchen. Plus, this gave an excuse to try the new recipes in Animal Crossing to make and place all these sweet treats (and gosh did I get hungry while designing this one).

Afternoon Tea

Afternoon tea! My favourite thing. For this I decided to make a build for Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It’s such a heartwarming series, focusing on a little cafe in Japan where people can go for a cup of coffee, and a time travel trip if they want (with lots of rules and strings attached, of course).

The cafe serves coffee, tea, etc, and this is basically how I pictured the cafe’s setup to be. It seemed like such a cozy environment, with cute tables and just a warm atmosphere. Honestly I don’t think they would actually have afternoon tea (I’m certain this is a British thing?) but I thought it would be a nice feature – or at least, not look entirely out of place here. For this I went less for accuracy and more about vibes.

Wooden Bookshelf

There were sooo many books I could choose from to use this huge bookshelf. I decided for The Devil Makes Three, since majority of the novel takes place in a library surrounded by books. The protagonists go searching deep into the library on books involving magic and spells, accidentally stumbling upon a book that should really not be opened.

The characters pore over books, finding time only once the library has been closed to the public, hence the dark setting and books littered everywhere. The book felt so cosy yet so creepy at the same time, so I hope I was able to capture both vibes I felt while reading the novel, since the main characters for sure felt an eerie atmosphere while looking over dusty books.

Thank you all for reading!
What books would you have used the items for?