The Gruffalo
The first edition
|
|
| Author | Julia Donaldson |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Axel Scheffler |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's fantasy |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
|
Publication date
|
23 March 1999 |
| Pages | 32 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 59379845 |
| Followed by | The Gruffalo's Child |
The Gruffalo is a children's book by writer and playwright Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, that tells the story of a mouse, the protagonist of the book, taking a walk in a European forest. The book has sold over 13 million copies, has won several prizes for children's literature, and has been developed into plays on both the West End and Broadway.
The Gruffalo was initially published in 1999 in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Children's Books () as a 32-page hardback edition, was followed six months later by a paperback edition, and subsequently by a small-format board book edition. It was penned for readers aged three to seven, and is about 700 words long. It is written in rhyming couplets, featuring repetitive verse with minor variance.
The story of a mouse's walk through the woods unfolds in two phases; in both, the mouse uses cunning to evade danger. On his way the mouse encounters several dangerous animals (a fox, an owl, and a snake). Each of these animals, clearly intending to eat the mouse, invites him back to their home for a meal. The cunning mouse declines each offer. To dissuade further advances, he tells each animal that he has plans to dine with his friend, a gruffalo, a monster-like hybrid that is half grizzly bear and half buffalo, whose favourite food happens to be the relevant animal, and describes the features of the gruffalo's monstrous anatomy. Frightened that the gruffalo might eat it, each animal flees. Knowing the gruffalo to be fictional, the mouse gloats thus:
After getting rid of the last animal, the mouse is shocked to encounter a real gruffalo – with all the frightening features the mouse thought that he was inventing. The gruffalo threatens to eat the mouse, but again the mouse is cunning: he tells the gruffalo that he, the mouse, is the scariest animal in the forest. Laughing, the gruffalo agrees to follow the mouse as he demonstrates how feared he is. The two walk through the forest, encountering in turn the animals that had earlier menaced the mouse. Each is terrified by the sight of the pair and runs off – and each time the gruffalo becomes more impressed with the mouse's apparent toughness. Exploiting this, the mouse threatens to eat the gruffalo, which flees.
The story is based on a Chinese folk tale of a fox that borrows the terror of a tiger. Donaldson was unable to think of rhymes for "tiger" so instead she invented a word that rhymes with "know".
...
Wikipedia