The Gruffalo Analysis

In this book critique I am going to give a short summary on the book I picked, I am going to discuss the characters, the language used in the story, where it’s been set, the illustrations and how the illustrations connect with the text and the different development it may link in with the children.

The book I picked to critique is The Gruffalo is an early learner’s book. It has sold over 13 million copies and has won several prises for children literature, been developed into a play on both west end and Broadway. The Gruffalo is a 32 page long book in English language. It is a children’s fantasy book which was published by Macmillan on the 23rd of March 1999 in the United Kingdom, it was written and play written by Julie Donaldson and illustrated

Along the way he meets a fox, an owl and a snake- all of whom are hungry and think the mouse would make fantastic treat to have for lunch. Then he finally comes across the Gruffalo, the descriptions of the 'Gruffalo ' stimulates one’s imagination and the concept of meeting the 'Gruffalo ' becomes very exciting The mouse is the main character whom is witty and clever, he crosses the threshold by entering into the ‘deep dark woods’ getting out of his comfort zone and being in a very risky place to where he could be eating up for lunch. By doing this the mouse shows great courage, strength and devotion to the readers, the fox, snake and owl would be seen as cowardly as the backed down once the mouse mentioned the Gruffalo. The Gruffalo would have been seen to be as fearless until the end of the book where the Mouse tricked all the other animal and told the Gruffalo that he would enjoy some ‘Gruffalo crumble’ and the mouse is seen as a mythical hero at the end of the book. This shows children a moral of the smallest creature/people using intelligence to overcome the brawny and intimidating of bigger creatures/people which is a great lesson that all children can relate to. This book would help with the child’s emotional development by talking to the children after and asking them questions about how the mouse might have felt or

It turns out not to be scary at all even the Gruffalo ends up scared of the mouse. The use of animal in the woods was a wondrous thing as the children were able to point out the different animals that they came across through the book creating senses of excitement as the children would not see these animals on a day to day basis. Being based in the woods, this gives lots of opportunity for sensory story, where mud, rocks and different animal fur could be brought into a crèche a day this book was been read, each child could get the feel of them, this would have particular benefits for individuals with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities, Autism and Sensory Processing