When three different television companies got in touch, each interested in filming the story, Donaldson was circumspect. In other words, she is equipped to cope with Gruffalo-mania. She was a songwriter for Playaway, and, although she had books published, she had periods in the doldrums: 'I know what it's like to sit there, unpublished.' Scheffler's pictures are masterly, and it all rhymes, a rhythmic, read-aloud kid's romp that gathers pace like a rocket.ĭonaldson, 55, is a writer and parent from Scotland who lived in the wilderness for ages, writing songs for children's television. And, like a Zen master who has used his antagonists' aggression against them, the mouse sits and eats a nut. The Gruffalo believes the mouse is scaring them, and flees. The quick-witted mouse boasts to the dim and aggressive beast that he is the 'scariest creature in this wood', and takes the Gruffalo back to meet the predators, who run in the face of the monster. 'A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood,' it begins, and, as the heroic rodent walks he saves himself from being devoured by a fox, an owl and a snake by spinning them a story about a menacing monster with which he is about to have lunch: 'He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.' The mouse's would-be predators leave him unharmed, but then he meets a real and hungry gruffalo - the imagination made flesh - ready to eat him. The Gruffalo has a kind of folkloric depth: pick it up, and it's as if you've read it before. It became - and remains - one of the UK's best-selling picture books. Shortly afterwards it was dubbed 'a modern classic', scooped the Smarties Gold prize (the equivalent of the Booker prize for children's literature), took the Blue Peter award for the best book to read aloud and the Experian Big Three prize. Written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, this cultish book was first published in 1999. If so, then you almost certainly don't have a child under the age of eight years old. It may be that you haven't come across The Gruffalo yet. Of the 20 or so children present, all of them knew every word and chanted them in unison, a sound as angelic to their parents as it must have been demonic to the neighbours. No, this modish mum and dad instead created a puppet performance of The Gruffalo.

These would have been far too cheesy and competitive. At a recent children's party in Islington - that London borough being the home of the bien-pensant parent - there was no dodgy magician, tragic clown, or even musical chairs.

The gruffalo