The Gruffalo (book)

Come closer and listen. Can you hear that soft, rustling sound? That’s me! It’s the sound my paper pages make when they are turning. I smell like fresh ink and exciting adventures waiting to happen. Inside me, there is a deep, dark wood where a very clever little mouse takes a stroll. But he’s not alone! He meets a sly fox, a wise old owl, and a slithery snake. To scare them away, he makes up a story about a terrifying friend. A friend with terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws! This creature has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes, and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. Who is this mysterious monster? It’s the one my story is named after. I am the book called The Gruffalo!

My story began in the mind of a wonderful writer named Julia Donaldson. She loved playing with words that sounded the same, which is called rhyming. Julia heard an old tale about a clever animal tricking a bigger one, and she thought, “What if the hero was a tiny mouse in a big, scary wood?” So, she wrote down my whole rhyming adventure. But words are only part of a story. I needed pictures! That’s when an amazing artist named Axel Scheffler came along. He is an illustrator, which is a special word for someone who draws the pictures in a book. He read Julia’s words and imagined my world. With his pens and paints, he drew the mouse’s brave face and the Gruffalo’s orange eyes and purple prickles all over his back. On August 23rd, 1999, I was finally born as a real book. I remember the very first time a child opened my cover and their eyes grew wide as they stepped into my deep, dark wood.

From that very first bookshelf, I started traveling all over the world. My pages have been read in cozy beds, sunny parks, and noisy classrooms. Children everywhere cheer for the little mouse who uses his brain to be brave. It turns out, my story was too big to stay inside my pages! I jumped out and became a movie you can watch, a play you can see in a theater, and even big wooden statues of my characters that you can find on trails in real forests. It makes me so happy to see families searching for the mouse, the fox, and of course, the Gruffalo! I am more than just paper and ink; I am a reminder that even if you feel small, a quick mind and a good story can make you the bravest of all.