 Hi everyone, my name is Steph. This is Little Bookish Teacher and welcome or welcome back to my channel. Today I have a review of The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Sheffer. This is the 25th anniversary edition of The Gruffalo because it is turning 25 this year. And that kind of blows my mind a little bit. This is a modern classic children's picture book that was not a book that I read when I was growing up. This came out while I was close to the end of primary school. So it was never a book that was a childhood book but I know it has been very, very popular since it has come out. And it is definitely one that I have used and seen being used in classrooms while I've been teaching. If you're unfamiliar with the story, this is the story of a little mouse who's going walking in the woods and is approached by all of these animals that are its natural predators. And in order to scare them away, the mouse tells them about this creature that it's going to have lunch with. That creature is called The Gruffalo. And the mouse's description scares all of the other animals and so they leave the mouse alone. Until the mouse comes face to face with The Gruffalo in truth. And the mouse has to do some pretty quick clinking and comes up with a plan to trick The Gruffalo into thinking that he, the mouse, is the most dangerous and feared animal in the woods. And it's very, very clever. It's also fun and rhyming and lyrical. There is a repetitive sentence structure style in here which makes it great for younger readers who, particularly those who are learning to read. So if it's a story that you're reading with your child, the repetitive structure gives them the opportunity to then be able to tell the story with you. Same thing in the classroom, having kids tell the story with you because they know what's coming up next is really helpful. It gives them confidence in reading. The rhyme in here is great. Being able to hear and recognize words that rhyme is a really important skill in younger readers. So texts like this are fantastic for it. But it also has some really great tier two vocabulary. Using words like roasted and frightfully, nobberly, feast, scrambled, all of those words are great for building a child's vocabulary because you can talk about, well, how would we use these? And some of these words have multiple meanings. So how are the different ways that we can use it? And it gives you a lot of scope for being able to talk about words, develop vocabulary in a really fun way in the story. In terms of talking about the story with the child, it's a great one to retell because there is a very clear sequence of events in the text. It's also really great for talking about problem and solutions. What are the problems in the story and how does the mouse overcome them? This can also be a really good one particularly when you're writing stories. This can be a really great one for talking about how you come up with character. So the mouse describes the Gruffalo in quite a bit of detail. So when children are coming up with their own characters, you can use this as an example of, okay, well, how would you describe this part of your character? How would you describe the next part? It's also a really good one for talking about telling the truth and lying and talking about why the mouse might be trying to trick the Gruffalo and might be telling lies in order to keep itself safe. This special edition is really lovely. One has got the lovely gold foiling on the front cover which is really interesting for filming but is really gorgeous in person. It also has letters from the author and illustrator at the back of the book that talk a little bit about how the book came about and their connection to it. There's also ways to celebrate the Gruffalo's birthday as well as the Gruffalo song at the back. So there's some lovely little inclusions in there. I wanna say a big thank you to Pan McMillan Australia who sent me this copy for review. It was really lovely to come back and revisit this very classic modern children's picture book and I can't wait to take this into the classroom and share it with my students this year. In the comments below, I'd love to know if you've read the Gruffalo and if you remember the first time that you read it, feel free to share that experience down below. Otherwise, feel free to leave a mouse emoji to let me know that you're here. I will leave links to where you can find out more information about the author, the illustrator and the book down below. Otherwise, I hope that wherever you're on the world, you're staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.