Tag Archives: julia donaldson

Review: The Gruffalo

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Most moms would agree that one of the must have books in a kid’s library is Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo. I am one of those Julia Donaldson living moms and said book is one of our favourite.

The inimitable book is about a clever mouse that outsmarts hungry fox, owl and snake and, beyond anyone’s belief, the Gruffalo too by, well, being just that tad cleverer than her hungry preys.

Needless to say, Q and I were really excited when they were part of kid’s fest 2013 (Jan/Feb) and bought our tickets early to watch the widely acclaimed show.

And the show did not disappoint! It was funny, engaging, fairly true to the book and highly musical. They kept the core rhyme pattern of the stories so the young Gruffalo fans (and their parents) were able to say the lines along with them; like when mouse says: Silly (old Fox), doesn’t he know? There’s no such thing as a Gruffalo!”


As someone who has read the book what seems to be a million times, I was surprised to find myself rooting for mouse more than I usually did. And even the Gruffalo was more cute, funny and cuddly- and hence a tad less scary for the younger members of the audience.

Q had an amazing time. He laughed, he recited lines, he played along and cheered for mouse when she made the Gruffalo run away in fear. Even our 10.5month old had a great time; he sat through the entire show, clapping alongside his brother and watching mesmerized through the musical numbers.

The Gruffalo stage version is much better than the movie, and to an extent, better than the book. Which, is a pretty neat feat.

Even if your kid has never read the book, take them anyway!

Cannot wait to do some Gruffalo activities tomorrow!


From the sistic synopsis:

Join Mouse on an adventurous journey through the deep dark wood in this magical musical adaptation of the award-winning book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (described by The Observer newspaper in England as “a modern classic”).

Mouse can scare hungry animals away with tall stories of the terrifying Gruffalo, but what happens when he comes face to face with the very creature he imagines? Let your imagination run wild with songs, laughs and fun for everyone aged 1 to 101!

World Day: International Literacy Day (8th Sept)

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We take it for granted, the ability to read and write. In fact, most of us take education for granted. That we and our kids would go to school, learn to read and write; most likely go to university and beyond is something we actively plan for, not (just) because we are so confident in their (and our) ability, but because its a given.

That our kids would read- enjoy books, magazines, read school notes… and write- letters, emails, assignments… hey, even, text messages; are something we take for granted.

Over my many trips to Myanmar, it has always been very evident to me that there are kids that cannot read and write. Some probably never will. And no matter how much we support literacy programs there, there will be many that fall through the cracks. Around the world some 775 million adults lack minimum literacy skills; one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women; 60.7 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out.

To commemorate International Literacy Day, we took Q to the bookstore to use some of the book vouchers we’ve been saving for one of our “book drought” days.

We have several favorite authors we “collect”. One of our favourite-est is Sandra Boynton who wrote the famous Pookie series. Q’s favorite is Fifteen Animals and he recites it like a little comedy act.

We also love collaborations between Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler  the team behind the famous Gruffalo books. They also wrote Stickman and Room on a Broom. His all time favorite is Monkey Puzzle which he reads and re-reads and re-reads.

Q, who’s is way into Ironman and the Avengers, picked out a new Ironman book, complete with moveable arms at the bookstore and has been lugging the said book everywhere!

Because our nights are usually kinda haphazard, we moved reading time to first thing in the morning. And its been great. Before the day descends upon us, we spend time reading. Evan joins us with his picture and touch-and-feel books too!
So, on International Literacy Day, we remember those that may have never even seen a book or have books readily available to them. We have several friends working on community library projects and over the next few months, maybe I’d run a drive to collect books from all of you guys!

Letter of the week- F

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E for Evan was a really big week here in the Tseng household and it was going to be tough for Letter F to kinda top it so took it easy and I gave it some space between both letters opting to do Letter F late in the week instead. And truthfully, I had to deal with a spanking new addition to the family too!

I opted to fo F for fox and flowers for the crafts but also to share that F was for fish, fan and flamingo. It was easy enough to entertain Q with these: we pretended to swim like fish about the house, spin like the ceiling fan (this the kid REALLY liked doing) and standing on one foot like a flamingo in my pink scarf.

We made a little fox and a big flower garden for the craft work- the flower one was a real hit cos there were tons of foam flower stickers to play with. And later that night we read one of our favorite books from the “Tales from Acorn Wood” series- Fox’s Socks by Julia Donaldson (of “The Gruffalo” fame) and Axel Scheffler (who also illustrated Stick Man).