Pan Macmillan
September 2026
ISBN: 9781037408724
Imprint: Macmillan Children’
RRP: $26.99
We may have waited quite a long time for a new Gruffalo book but it’s certainly be worth it. What a clever twist on the traditional 1001 Nights Sheherazade story!
Granny Gruffalo is coming to stay and this demands a tasty stew so Gruffalo and Child go out to search for their main ingredient. The fox, the owl and the snake all divert their attention to the mouse and father and child swoop him up mid-story to his mousekin audience.
Popped into a little cage as the gruffalos continue to collect the vegetables they need and get the stew underway. Just as they plan to drop their main ingredient in, the Mouse starts a story and leaves it at a pertinent point before the gruffalos sleep – while Mouse gnaws the bars of his little wooden cage. This routine continues.
Until, of course, after a few nights the gruffalos wake up to an empty cage, an escaped mouse and an arrived Granny – who subsequently declares as she eats her delicious veggie stew that she has now forsworn meat! Clever! and even more clever is the fact that Mouse is telling Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler stories. The readers will definitely applaud Mouse’s cleverness and his determination to escape (like a mousey Great Escape or Shawshank really!) a stewed fate.
It is just pure delight from first to last page and your Smalls will lap it up! There is not much to say about this hugely talented pair of creators who never ever get it wrong. Their body of work speaks for itself and we are all the richer for it, no matter our age. I would easily envisage a whole unit of work based around these books or at least a classroom showcase of them.
How I wish there was a Gruffalo emoji! but alas a 5 🐭🐭🐭🐭🐭must suffice for kiddos from EC up – and why not read it to your older ones and then have them read a version of the source idea or show them?
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