The Gruffalo (book)

Come closer and listen. Feel the smooth cover under your fingertips and hear the soft rustle as you turn my first page. You are entering a world made of paper and ink, a deep dark wood where the trees are tall black lines and the shadows are pools of gray. A clever little mouse is taking a stroll through this very wood. He is small, but his mind is sharp. He knows that danger lurks behind every tree, so he invents a protector, a monster so scary that no one would dare mess with him. He describes this creature piece by piece. Can you picture him? He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes, and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. The mouse feels very safe with his imaginary friend. But then, a shadow falls over the path. Two big orange eyes appear, followed by purple prickles and a long, green-tipped tail. The monster from the mouse’s imagination is real. And I am the one who holds this incredible secret. I am the book that tells his story. I am The Gruffalo.

My story didn't begin in a deep dark wood, but in the brilliant mind of a woman named Julia Donaldson. Julia loved playing with words, making them dance and rhyme together. She had read an old Chinese folk tale about a clever girl who tricks a hungry tiger, and it sparked an idea. She wanted to write her own story about a small creature outsmarting bigger ones. But she had a puzzle to solve. She needed a monster whose name rhymed with the word “know.” She thought and thought, and then, like a little bit of magic, a new word popped into her head: “Gruffalo.” That was it. But a name is just a name. What did a Gruffalo look like? That’s when another creator, an artist named Axel Scheffler, picked up his pencils and paints. He read Julia’s rhyming words and let his imagination fly. He gave my monster his famous orange eyes, his horns, and the purple prickles all over his back. Together, Julia’s words and Axel’s pictures created the world inside me. On March 23rd, 1999, I was finally printed, bound, and sent out into the world. My pages, filled with adventure, were ready to be turned by children just like you.

My life grew much bigger than anyone ever expected. The story of the clever mouse and the not-so-scary monster leaped right off my pages and into the world in amazing new ways. First, I became an animated film, where you could hear the mouse’s squeak and the Gruffalo’s deep grumble. Then, actors began to perform my story on stage, making audiences of children and grown-ups laugh and cheer in theaters. Perhaps most wonderfully, my deep dark wood became a real place. In forests and parks, special woodland trails were created where families could walk the same path as the mouse, finding big wooden statues of the fox, the owl, the snake, and of course, the Gruffalo himself. Through all of this, my simple message has traveled far and wide: you don’t need to be the biggest or the strongest to be brave. A quick mind and a courageous heart are the most powerful tools of all. I am always here, waiting on a shelf or in a library, ready to remind you that imagination can help you face any challenge, and the best adventures are the ones we share together.