One of the first things they will proudly explain to a tourist with children when they enter a Glasgow bookstore is that in this Scottish city it was where the English author Julia Donaldson (London, 1948) wrote The Gruffalo. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide and translated into 107 languages, The Gruffalo is today the second best-selling children’s book in historyonly behind The little Princeof Antoine de Saint-Exupérypublished in 1943, and has every right in the world to celebrate its 25th anniversary in style.
“It’s hard to believe that The Gruffalo It’s already a quarter of a century old. It’s no wonder that today some parents tell me that they remember reading the book to them as children. Although that makes me feel old, it’s actually great to know that there are families from all over the world sharing this story, that there are adults using different voices to entertain their children while they read it aloud,” explains Donaldson in a press release issued by the Macmillan publishing house in honor of the publication’s 25th anniversary.
One mouse, three predators
The story has as its protagonist a little mouse who is about to take a walk through the forest in search of nuts and along the way he runs into three predators who want to eat him: a fox, an owl and a snake. To scare them, the rodent invents that he has met in that same place to have lunch/dinner/snack with his friend Gruffalo – a fearsome monster, with “terrible fangs”, “terrible teeth” and “terrible mouth” -, and that precisely his favorite food is some dish made with the predator in question.
Hearing the mouse, the predators flee, scared to death, and he continues on his way until he comes face to face with his own creation, the Gruffalo. His new challenge will be to convince him that he is the bravest in the forest and that all the animals fear him.
Lies or intellectual capacity
“I don’t mean to be didactic, but my stories probably wouldn’t be good stories if they were just adventures. I like to think that I have good “moral principles”Donaldson acknowledged in an interview with the British newspaper The Independent. Although, in the case of He Gruffalosome criticized her for encouraging children to tell lies when they are in trouble, it is actually a story “about the use of brain over brawn. Luckily, all the other animals are very stupid, or it wouldn’t work,” the author explained in the same interview.
Written in verse, The Gruffalo is inspired by a traditional chinese fable starring a girl who escapes death by convincing a tiger that she is the queen of the forest. However, when Donaldson set out to write it in English, he realized that the word tiger (Tiger) was very complicated to rhyme, so he decided to change the name of the beast to one that ended in “oh” (Gruffalo).
Part of life
The result was a success. Today, thousands of children are able to recognize the characteristic monster, the work of the German illustrator Axel Schefferon cups, stuffed animals, slippers and all kinds of merchandising. After the success of Gruffalo, Scheffer and Donaldson have collaborated on various children’s books, such as The stick man, How cool is your broom! and The snail and the whale.
“It is always a great pleasure to meet children at book signings and hear how much they love the Gruffalo and his world. In one way or another, the Gruffalo is part of their daily lives, since the characters have gone from books to television, theater and various products. The Gruffalo is an important part of your daily life, as it is of mine,” the German illustrator told Macmillan.
Intelligence over strength
Awarded with the prize Children’s Laureate 2011-2013 and author of more than a hundred books, Donaldson is currently one of the most recognized children’s authors in the world, although her best-known book remains The Gruffalowhich she wrote while living in Glasgow, where her husband was a university professor.
The Gruffalo has not only overcome the challenge of becoming a best-seller world a children’s book written in verse and adapt it to the language and culture of each country (in the German version, “roasted fox” becomes “fuchsspieß” –“fox skewer”–, while the Japanese translator converted the “snake mess” into “kabayaki snake”, adapting a traditional grilled fish dish, and in the French version it is “creme de serpent“), but has become a reference for transmitting to children a value as universal as the triumph of intelligence over strength.
