THE GRUFFALO (JULIA DONALDSON, 1999)

The Gruffalo is one of the world’s best-loved monsters. Since it was first published
in 1999, the award-winning story of his encounter with the little brown mouse in the
deep dark wood has continued to delight children and adults the world over.

The protagonist of The Gruffalo is a mouse. The story of the mouse's walk through
the woods unfolds in two phases; in both, the mouse uses cunning to evade
danger.

The mouse goes for a walk in the forest and on his way encounters several
dangerous animals (a fox, an owl, and a snake). Each of these animals, clearly
intent on eating 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 is going to dine with his friend, a gruffalo, whose favourite food happens to be
the relevant animal. The
mouse describes the
outlandish features of the
gruffalo's monstrous
anatomy. Frightened that the
gruffalo might eat them,
each animal flees. The
mouse gloats to himself; he
knows the gruffalo is a
fictional monster:

Silly old fox/owl/snake,

doesn't he know? there's no
such thing as a gruffalo!

After he has seen off the last

animal, however, the mouse
is shocked to encounter a
real gruffalo, bearlike and
hideous and with all the
frightening features the
mouse thought that he was
inventing. True to his
reputation, 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 everyone is afraid of him. 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, who himself
flees.

Created by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, the most successful

author/illustrator partnership in picture book publishing, The Gruffalo is a modern
classic, and both mouse and monster have become stars of stage and screen as
well as story-time favourites.
It all began when Julia Donaldson came across a Chinese tale about a clever girl
who tricks a hungry tiger into believing she is the Queen of the Jungle and scares
him away. Julia thought this would make the basis for a good picture book story,
but couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with ‘tiger’ – so she created her own
monster whose name had to end in O, to rhyme with ‘doesn’t he know’.

In

fact, if you’ve ever wondered why the Gruffalo looks the way he does, that also has
a lot to do with things that just happened to rhyme, like toes and nose, and black
and back.
But of course the Gruffalo as we know him didn’t come fully to life until Axel
Scheffler picked up his pencil and drew him. He might have looked quite different;
at first, Axel sketched out a monster who was even more frightening than the one
we know! He also thought about making the animals wear clothes, but in the end
this didn’t happen, perhaps to Axel’s relief: imagine trying to dress a snake!Five
years after the publication of
The Gruffalo, The
Gruffalo’s Child was
introduced to the world,
starring in her very own
adventure – and proved
an instant hit. It was
voted The Children’s
Book of the Year at the
British Book of the Year
Awards in 2005.
The Gruffalo, too, has
won many awards,
including the Nestlé
Smarties Prize and the
Blue Peter Award for
The Best Book to Read
Aloud – and in 2009
was voted the UK’s
favourite bedtime story. But Gruffalo fans are everywhere: the story has been
translated into over fifty languages, including Thai, Russian, Scots and Maori . . .
and for Classics scholars, there is even a Latin edition.
 THE GRUFFALO (JULIA DONALDSON, 1999)

PRESENTED BY:

CARLOS ANDRES HOSTIA VILLANUEVA

IRANYS URBINA GUTIERREZ

TEACHER NAME

UNIVERSIDAD POPULAR DEL CESAR

CIENCIAS BASICAS DE LA EDUCACION
LICENCIATURA EN LENGUA CASTELLANA E INGLES
VALLEDUPAR
2019