The Gruffalo

by Julia Donaldson

Book Overview

Julia Donaldson's trademark rhyming text and Axel Scheffler's brilliant, characterful illustrations come together in this perfect read aloud--a perfect gift for any special occasion!

A mouse is taking a stroll through the deep, dark wood when along comes a hungry fox, then an owl, and then a snake. The mouse is good enough to eat but smart enough to know this, so he invents . . . the gruffalo! As Mouse explains, the gruffalo is a creature...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0142403873
• ISBN13: 9780142403877
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 8.3" x 10.3"
• Age Range: 3 to 7 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 2

Customer Reviews

The item we received was not in “like new” condition.

The item we received was not in “like new” condition. It was scratched, has something on the cover, and is bent on every cover.

Front page torn and impossible to see

This is a great book for kids. This COPY of the book is dirty, the front two pages were stuck together and torn apart by a previous owner. In my opinion this book is not salable. Very disappointed.

Kids love this book

This story kids always want to read. This is a picture book that keeps kids listen and watch me reading till the end.

Story Great! 5 stars ! Book Poor! 1 star!

The Gruffalo is a terrific rhyming story that engages children and makes for a great read-aloud. I have used it for years with children ages 4-8. I wanted my own copy. I ordered the hardback edition and got the board book. I ordered the hardback edition a second time. The copy available was labeled in "Good" condition. I just got it and the outside cover and pages are clean and pristine looking, however there are four pages with 2-3 inch tears at the top of the page and one page with a 2 big triangular tears in the middle of the page depicting the Gruffalo. I do not consider that many sizable tears to be "Good" condition.

Son loves The Gruffalo

Such a clever and cute story

My daughter can’t get enough of the witty mouse

The book is such a fun read , my toddler keeps asking me to read it again.

Absolutely love this book.

Its well put together. Super entertaining. A family favorite!

Share it with your kids!

A review of the hardcover edition applies to the softcover as well: The Gruffalo is a delightfully irreverent story about a mouse and an imaginary monster, sure to please grown-ups as well as children. This is a case where you CAN judge the book by its humorous cover, and you won't be disappointed. Axel Scheffler's brightly colored and too-silly-to-be-really-scary illustrations set the tone for this light-hearted romp through multiple layers of comic irony; and Julia Donaldson's marvelous doggerel perfectly realizes the mouse's sprightly character. It's much more than great fun, though. The Gruffalo also has tremendous resonance with familiar elements of Western culture. This is a story that Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell all could love. It's a perfect little Hero's Journey: it's got "the deep dark wood," a confrontation with the Monster Within, and a victorious return to the ordinary world where a nut is good. Had this been a fable of Aesop, we could expect our hero to be eaten right in the middle, and we would be left with some such lesson as "Don't be too clever for your own good." Instead, our mythical mouse makes his Eternal Return bearing a subtle wisdom that echoes the teachings of the world's greatest mystics. The very structure of the story is classic, reminiscent of the great repetitive folk tales, such as "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," "The Three Little Pigs," or "The Little Red Hen." The mouse's encounter with a dangerous predator is repeated with slight variation in the wording three times (yes, three times, as in three crows of a cock, three days in the belly of the fish, three temptations under a bo tree...) then, after a dramatic climax, the story works its way back with another set of three variations as the mouse retraces his steps on the path toward the real climax. The Gruffalo's greatest fun for grown-ups comes from its heaps of irony. First, there's the expectation of an Aesopian fable. That expectation is thwarted by the clever mouse. Second are the characters of the animals: they're all wrong. The mouse is not meek and fearful; he's bold and confident, a real smart-aleck, in fact. Then the fierce predators turn out to be wimps. Not only that, these are the exact animals that always represent intelligence in Western folk literature -- the clever fox -- the wise owl -- the subtle snake. Here they are all outwitted by the littlest of animals. Third is the basic irony of the mouse's meeting with the gruffalo -- maybe the mouse is not so clever, after all. Fourth, the terrible monster...! Fifth, he went through all that for a nut. Sixth, that story was a profoundly archetypal tale in goofy rhyme, with cartoon pictures. Seventh, I actually wrote this review, and you actually read it. What's next? Am I going to tell you that Harvey Potter's Balloon Farm is a model for education reform? (well . . . yes!) Finally, The Gruffalo really is a fun and loveable book. One of the best for sharing with your kids.

great language

This is the second book by this author that we've gotten. (The other is "The Snail and the Whale"--also fabulous!) My 5-year old daughter loves the language, repetition and intelligence of these books and I enjoy reading them to her just as much. Again, the fable of the small animal outwitting the larger one, plays out beautifully. I'd recommend this to anyone with young children.

One Of The Best!

I read this book to my kindergarten class and they LOVE it! The children act it out, sequence the story through pictures, journal about it and talk about it for months it is one of their favorites and mine too! I love reading it because they get so excited and it is so much fun to read over and over!

The Gruffalo

This is a wonderful and engaging book to have in a classroom library. You can teach various writing and reading concepts such as: inferences, dialogue, patterns, punctuation and rhyme. Kids simply love it and are eager to participate in the reading.

Book full of prediction opportunities: It was Good!

This is a great book for K and 1st graders. The story is written in rhyming fashion and is very thought provoking and it gives lots of chances to guess what happens next. It follows a path and then returns to a ending that make you smile. Kids will love it. Illustrations are well done. Very Imaginative.