The Gruffalo

When you read the title, you can’t help it but ask yourself what is “The Gruffalo?” Oh dear, it’s a children story! Julia Donaldson has come out with this very interesting story where the title itself will make people wonder, that is actually a Gruffalo? Is it really exists? Well, let me tell you what is “The Gruffalo”

Well, the story is about a clever mouse that had a walk in the jungle. Somewhere (at different points) and somehow during the walk, it came across three preys who were the fox, owl and snake. Afraid of being eaten by these animals, the mouse came out with a story and a creature named the Gruffalo. The mouse said that it wanted to see the Gruffalo and after the mouse described what Gruffalo’s look like, all the animals were scared and they didn’t want to eat the mouse. At the end, the mouse actually meets the creature named The Gruffalo which it taught only in its imagination. The Gruffallo wanted to eat the mouse but the mouse said that it is the scariest animal in the forest. To prove the statement, it brought Gruffallo all along way back and the animals ran away when they saw the Gruffallo. But the Gruffallo doesn’t know that the other animals are afraid of it and not the mouse, so he fled at last.

The main character in this story is the mouse, which can be categorized as tiny, cunning and an intelligent mouse. It told stories to the animals that wanted to eat it and eventually, all those animals didn’t. This tiny little mouse is actually same as the Kancil in the story “Sang Kancil dan Sang Buaya” in Malaysia.

I bet children must like the story because the storyline is simple and easy to understand. A mouse is known as a tiny and helpless creature. So, when the mouse won the ‘battle’ in the jungle so survive, the children will be happy as they imagine that they are same as the mouse, tiny and helpless creature. This masterpiece of Donaldson is very impressing. Her imagination to create The Gruffalo is extraordinary. Not only that, her idea to name as The Gruffalo; a name which never existed is amazing too.