21. The Gruffalo [picture]

By: Julia Donaldson
Illustration by: Axel Scheffler
Genre: Children's picture book
Subgenre: Children's fantasy
Theme: Courage
Primary characters: Mouse, Gruffalo
Awards: N/A
Date of Publication: 1999
Publishing Company: Macmillan
Summary: The mouse uses his cunning ways to get him out of danger. The mouse gets invinted back to a fox, owl, and a snake's house. Those animals eventually want to eat him but he tricks them and says that he has dinner plans with his friend a gruffalo, who eats the animal he is dining with at the time. Later the mouse runs into an actual gruffalo. He thought he was making up this animal the whole time. The gruffalo wants to eat him, but the mouse once again thinks of an idea. The mouse tells him that he is the scariest animal in the forest. The gruffalo, intrigued, walked with him into the forest. They encounter the snake, owl, and fox the mouse was with earlier. They all flee in fear of the gruffalo that might eat them. The mouse then threatens to eat the gruffalo, then he flees. This story would be great to enterain a classroom of early elementary children. The plot will hold their attention and the illustrations are colorful.