solution to the free acrostic puzzle

I've realised I forgot to tell you the solution to the free acrostic I posted on January 30. Apologies for taking so long!

By the way, we're not sure whether to  call this a crostic, an anacrostic, or even an acrostic. But who cares? The puzzle's the thing, not the terminology. (I hope you agree.)

Here it is:

The novel was Curse of the Scarab, by H Y Hanna.

The short extract from this enjoyable book was:

The grey tabby disappeared into a towering bush, which seemed to have grown straight into the back wall of the house. Looking closer, Honey realised that it in fact concealed a huge gap where the crumbling wall had fallen away.

And the details:

A - homologue

B - yew

C - hedgehog

D - Australian silky terrier

E - nymph

F - neglect

G - a cheetah

H - cavalier King Charles spaniel

I - upbeat

J - Rin Tin Tin

K - show

L - ebb

M - ohh

N - flew

O - To Say Nothing of the Dog

P - hatch

Q - etude

R - swab

S - chat

T - a watt

U - Red Wolf

V - a wag

W - bearded collie

You'll notice that the first letters of the solutions, reading down, spell out the name of the author and the title of the novel.

I hope you had fun if you did it!

a free crostic puzzle

I'm not sure if any of you (humans, that is) have ever done a crostic puzzle, but here's one, courtesy of one of Penny's humans.

The diagram is not a crossword, even though it might look like one. The whole thing is an excerpt from a piece of writing, in this case a novel. No hints as to which novel, of course, but if you have read any of Hsin-Yi's doggy mysteries, you might...oops, I wasn't supposed to give any hints.

Each word in the text ends at a shaded square, which is not necessarily at the end of a line. There's no punctuation.

You answer the clues as best you can, and transfer the letters to the diagram. The tiny letter in the top right of each square tells you which clue to transfer from.

Often you can guess incomplete words on the diagram, especially if you've read about Honey and her adventures - oops, forgot I'm not going to give away which author features in the puzzle.

As an extra help, the first letters of each answer, on the clue page, reading down, spell the name of the author and the title of the book.

In case I haven't explained clearly, here are some links to sites that describe the way to solve a crostic:
how stuff works
netcrostics

I'm including it as a jpg, so you would have to print out these two following sections, if you want to do it. I don't know how to make it bigger on the blog page, but if you click on each page of the puzzle, it opens in a new window where it's easier to read.

In a couple of weeks I'll post the answer, just in case someone wants to see it.

Have fun!

BTW, I've just had a thought. Seeing I'm a primary school teacher (elementary school), I'll mention that this puzzle is copyright free. Any teachers using H A Hanna's award-winning books in class are welcome to print off these puzzles.

a crostic puzzled based on a book about dogs

When I mentioned to one of my brothers that I had read an interesting book about a dog, he decided to make up a crostic puzzle based on an excerpt from that book. He regularly posts crostic puzzles but I've reproduced the puzzle here because when he changes his puzzles the old ones are lost.

I keep telling him to start a blog, so his puzzles can be archived!

Here it is, for your enjoyment. You would need to print the puzzle grid and the clues if you want to solve it. They are images, so I think it won't be too hard to print them.If you have problems getting them here, you could go to his website and print them. (There are links to clues on his site, if you get desperate.)

Let me know if you enjoy puzzles like this and I'll ask him to make up more (with a dog theme).

Instructions:
This kind of puzzle is called a Crostic.

The diagram is not a crossword. It is an exerpt from a piece of writing. Words end at the shaded squares, not (necessarily) at the end of lines. No punctuation is given.

Answer the clues as best you can, then transpose the letters to the squares with the matching numbers. (The letter in the square tells which clue it is from.) Then you try to recognise words on the diagram, and complete them. Then you transpose those letters back, etc., until the whole thing is finished. Three letter words may be "the", one letter words are usually 'a' or 'I'.

As an extra help, the first letters of the answers usually spell the name of the author, and the work the extract is from. (That's where the name, Crostic, comes from.)

The diagram, and the clues, are pictures, which I hope you can download and print (or it's going to be a very difficult puzzle!)

This one has three clues about dogs, and is based on a book about a dog, but it should be fairly straighforward. One of the dog names is unusual.

Grid (click on the grid to get a bigger image):



Clues (click on the clues to get a bigger image):