THE GRUFFALO – It’s a classic for a reason
kids’ entertainment? So good they made a film too.
adults’ entertainment? I’d read it to myself at bedtime.
useful learning features? On oh so many levels.
When you’re looking for a book to read with your child, the first thing you’ll probably look for is one that will keep you both entertained. One of the great things about the Gruffalo is that its simplicity is simply charming, rather than dumbed down and infuriating – and it also tells a coherent story rather than a series of meaningless events.
Little brown mouse has a reason for his journey through the deep dark wood – as revealed at the end, he was just looking for a nut to eat for dinner. But he also has a reason for inventing the terrifying Gruffalo creature: the fox, the owl, and the snake were also looking for something to eat for dinner. If it had been a mouse in any other children’s story, with no discernible motive behind the characters, they might have had full bellies.
Of course, any good editor probably wouldn’t allow the ‘mouse gets eaten’ scene directly into the book, but the key thing with a good story for any age, is that it progresses in a way that’s plausible – not to mention actually progresses.
With The Gruffalo, it’s always moving forward. The mouse is going on his journey, then oh dear, he encounters a problem predator. But what does he do? He solves the problem by outsmarting them, so that he can continue on his merry way. You’ve got a solid, albeit simple, example of good narrative structure there. There’s even subtext! The consequences of not solving his problems are never explained in a lengthy, drawn out, painful, morality story style way, no.
You have to read between the lines to realise that he’s trying not to get eaten – which means the kids engaging their brains! Apparently that’ a difficult concept for some children’s stories… But enough ranting about how disappointing other books are – let’s talk about how Julia Donaldson has made this one a hidden goldmine of useful little linguistic details!
Alliteration
One of the first steps in learning how to read is recognising that sounds are represented by the letters on the page, and being able to match each sound to each letter, or group of them – alliteration is a great way to get started with this.
A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.
These are just single letter alliterations, which is essentially step one in learning your alphabet, before you then move on to learning the sounds that need multiple letters to be put together. Having these sounds at the start of the words though also makes them much easier to hear and identify.
Rhyming
The rhyme scheme in every other line is a brilliant way to help children learn and remember the story, even before they come to reading it properly. Then, once they’re familiar with the repeating sounds, they’ll start to recognise that they’re the same even if they’re written with different letters.
Where are you going to, little brown mouse? Come and have tea in my underground house.
Here, by these rocks, and his favourite food is roasted fox.
Silly old fox! Doesn’t he know? There’s no such thing as a Gruffalo!
Most of these kinds of sounds are ones that kids will learn early on, so rhyme is a great way to help make that connect between speaking and reading or writing. Just because some words that have the same sounds use the same letters, there are more rules to learn for the ones that are different.
Stages of learning
As I mentioned earlier, one of the great things about this story is that it’s not overly simplified, and Donaldson doesn’t shy away from putting a few more advanced words in the story, from meaning to spelling.
On went the mouse through the deep dark wood.
It’s frightfully nice of you, Owl, but no –
He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes, and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.
The Gruffalo will be a great investment, because you can use it to help your children learn lots of new spelling rules as they get older and advance through different stages of learning. These kinds of single sounds that can take up to four letters to write are actually a lot more common than you’d think, which is not helpful when you’re trying to learn to read and spell, so it’s a good job we can introduce the idea in a story that’s familiar.
Visual cues
Now this might not quite be linguistics, but it’s just as important and deserves an honorary linguistic mention!
One of the ways children start learning how to read is by recognising and remembering the overall shapes of words on a page – it’s almost like a macro version of assigning a sound to the individual letters, or groups of letters. However, something that can help a lot with understanding the meaning behind the shapes and words, is illustrations. It goes without saying that before you can read words, pictures are your most reliable form of communication.
An image of a mouse
The shape of the word ‘mouse’
The sound of the word mouse
All of these versions of a mouse combine to form ‘what a mouse is’ in your mind, so visual cues are a huge help in making it easier to form that meaning and make those connections. Illustrations are also great at helping children keep track of what stage of the story they’re at, which is a small, but essential factor.
And with that, she dubbed The Gruffalo a classic for a reason.
A lot of parents and families didn’t know about The Gruffalo until it became the Christmas story of choice a few years ago, but it’s actually been around for 20 years! Hopefully after reading this review you’ll agree that it has stood the test of time well for its use of useful learning factors and its entertainment value for you and your children – not to mention Axel Scheffler’s delightful illustrations!