The Gruffalo

The little brown mouse is quite a clever and cheeky little fellow. I absolutely love how this book shows young readers how to use their brains rather than their brawn when standing up to bullies/people bigger than them. I believe the author certainly understands what it is like to navigate through a world that's much too big for them alone (which especially applies to kids), and this definitely comes across with the little brown mouse's adventurous (and dare I say fearless in the face of danger) attitude. This story is great for anyone of any age, as it helps to be reminded that in this world, we don't always need to be the biggest or strongest.

Сказка в стихах для чтения взрослыми детям. Маленький мышонок идет через дремучий лес и, чтобы спастись от лисы, совы и змеи, выдумывает страшного груффало - зверя, который очень любит есть лис, сов и змей. Но сможет ли находчивый мышонок перехитрить всех голодных хищников? Ведь он-то хорошо знает, что никаких груффало не бывает. Или бывает?

This story is humorous in the fact of the mouse escaping its predators only to come face to face with the Gruffalo-thought to be made up. The vibrant illustrations bring the characters to life. We see themes of courage, resourcefulness and the power of story telling. We love reading this together in my home.

I love the way Gruffalo roles off the tongue as you read this book aloud, and all the wonderful rhyming---the paragraphs practically sing. The story itself is wonderfully clever, with the high point in middle when the trickster mouse runs into the gruffalo. And he tricks the monster as well, highly satisfying.

Naturally, any book that rhymes is a good read to me. But what I love about this book is how clever it is. Instead of a character using lies to hurt others, the mouse in this story convinces predators that he is visiting a ferocious Gruffalo (which he says doesn't even exist). This scares the predators into running away and the mouse is left unharmed. The dialogue between multiple characters in every page makes this the perfect read aloud book for a classroom, the descriptions bring the pictures to life, and the ending provides a clever twist. This story just goes to show that being able to think on your feet can be life-saving.

This Smarties Book Prize gold award winner was chosen by my 5 year old from his brother's school book fair. He thoroughly enjoyed reading it to me at bedtime, and it is currently a favourite which sits on his bedside shelf, and which he keeps re-reading to himself (both silently and out loud), and to anyone who will listen.

The story, told in rhyming couplets, is about a mouse walking through the woods and avoiding being eaten by the other denizens of the woods by telling them scary stories of his imaginary friend, the gruffalo ... until he meets a real gruffalo, who would also like to eat him!

'A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come

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and have lunch in my underground house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no -
I'm going to have lunch with a gruffalo." '

Our edition, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, has lots of pictures interspersed through the text, including lots of full page and double page illustrations. The illustrations are reasonably simple at first glance, but with lots of background information, in terms of plants and small woodland creatures.

The rhythm is catchy, and the rhymes form several repeating patterns that makes the story easy to read and - quite frankly - addictive for young readers. I have a suspicion that my son first came across the book in school, and liked it so much that he decided to get it for his own when he came across it at the book fair.

This was the first time I had read the story myself, and it's delightful. The mouse imagines all kinds of scary features for the gruffalo, and I wondered if the real gruffalo would look anything like his imagination - and whether the mouse would escape from such a scary creature.

It's funny and clever, and my five year old loves it.

Five stars.
5***** show less

The clever mouse takes a dangerous walk through the woods, inventing a fearsome creature called the Gruffalo to scare off predators. But what happens when the monster turns out to be real?? This book has brilliant rhyming text and expressive illustrations.