The astounding success of The Gruffalo obviously begged a sequel, but how could its authors hope to follow up the picture book that effectively reinvented the fable without disappointing their expectant audience? The solution to their problem was the same as Mouse’s to his: with imagination and guile.
The story of The Gruffalo’s Child widens the canvas a little, Julia Donaldson introducing us to the Gruffalo’s "bored and brave” offspring who, one stormy night, ventures into the deep dark wood to track down the Big Bad Mouse whom her father speaks of with such awe. Happily, all the memorable characters that helped to make The Gruffalo such an enchanting tale are strewn along the Gruffalo’s Child’s path, however this time they are not used as empty-bellied antagonists, but instead unwitting allies of wily Mouse. Herein lies the brilliance of The Gruffalo’s Child - it is not a mere extension or reworking of The Gruffalo, but a clever inversion of it. Whereas the original followed Mouse through the wood, pedalling his propaganda in an attempt to avoid the jaws, beaks and sliced bread of the ravenous creatures that he encountered, this sequel follows the Gruffalo’s Child through the wood as she seeks to unstitch what she suspects is Mouse’s tapestry of lies, only to fall prey to his trickery herself, and thus suffer her father’s fate.
Axel Scheffler’s artwork is also peerless once more; a charismatic fusion of cute cartoon and fluff-veiled menace. Given this story’s nocturnal setting, Scheffler favours a darker colour palette here, imbuing the tale with a more ominous atmosphere that in some ways makes it even more effective than the original.
Indeed, The Gruffalo’s Child is The Empire Strikes Back of picture book sequels. If her animated responses are anything to go by, my daughter couldn’t have been any more enamoured with the literary component of her first Christmas’s haul - and, particularly as I’m the one on reading duty most nights, nor could I.
