Gruffalo? What’s a Gruffalo?

Gruffalo? What’s a Gruffalo?

Originally uploaded by Through a Child’s Eyes

In the month of September, Alex’s homework is to read with his parents 15 minutes a day (something we already did — three stories, which generally takes at least 15 minutes, if not more), keep a written log of what we are reading, and also keep a journal of his own interpretation of what we have read.

I have been terrible about this. We have so little time,and reading is usually our last activity before lights out, so it is hard to fit in.

But tonight, Alex was staying up a little late to wait for the ice cream maker to finish its job (a story for another post!) and so after our third story, I busted out the school packet and encouraged Alex to draw a picture. Our final story had been The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson, and that is what Alex decided to draw a picture about.

If you aren’t familiar with it, The Gruffalo is an adorable story about a clever little mouse who first scares off all of his predators with the tale of what he thinks is a creature of his own imagination. Then, when a real, live Gruffalo arrives intending to eat him up, the quick-thinking mouse uses his prior tall tales to trick the Gruffalo into thinking that he, the mouse, is the most terrible creature in the deep, dark wood. In reality, he isn’t the scariest, just the cleverest. The story is told in a wonderfully addictive meter and rhythm (as are all of Julia Donaldson’s books, I gather — we are also big fans of The Snail and the Whale)

Click on the drawing to go to Alex’s Flickr page for full notes on the photo as Alex explained it to me. He drew the nut first (on the last page of the book, the clever little mouse eats a nut for dinner), then the mouse around it, then the Gruffalo, then finally the trees. Last, I told him the letters to spell Gruffalo at the top. Yes, he has to work on his Gs, but otherwise, not bad!

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the composition and placement is actually reminiscent of the layout of the book cover, with title at the top, the Gruffalo on the right near two trees, and the mouse on the left (though the mouse isn’t eating his nut on the cover - that would give away the ending!):

So, my apologies to illustrator Axel Scheffler , but I am quite proud of my little artist’s work!