Oh Lordy. Here we go. The Gruffalo is back – or rather, the Gruffalo Granny – a new take on the most famous children’s character of the last 30 years other than Harry Potter. So, we’re going multi-generational with the monster; the last one, published over 20 years ago, was The Gruffalo’s Child…now it’s the oldie coming on the scene like Grendel’s mother, except not.

Julia Donaldson really does churn ‘em out

The publisher, Macmillan, for whom Julia Donaldson must have seemed like their very own JK Rowling – 18.2 million copies of the two titles and counting – announced that Granny Gruffalo would drop on 10 September, and crucially, it’s illustrated by Axel Scheffler, who is as critical to The Gruffalo as Quentin Blake was to Roald Dahl. Meanwhile there’s world-class hype underway. We’ve had a little taster already; an image of the Gruffalo Granny was projected onto the British Library (it’s that significant) and whereas the original Gruffalo was described thus:

“Who is this creature with terrible claws and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws? He has knobbly knees and turned-out toes and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. His eyes are orange, his tongue is black. He has prickles all over his back”

We find that the Granny has grey fur, with red prickles on her back, in contrast to the Gruffalo’s purple. She also has green eyes, not orange, and is carrying a walking stick and a knapsack. Donaldson said: “She’s got a blue wart instead of a green wart, and the grey fur of a slightly more mature gruffalo.” Well, spoiler!

The Gruffalo when it came out as illustrated by Scheffler was a jolly, jaunty read – and The Gruffalo’s Child was a perfectly good ‘un too. There’s lots to be said for a rhyming story, and the cartoonish illustrations are detailed enough to reward child scrutiny. It’s a matter of grim certainty that the new book will be televised by the BBC, possibly in time for yet another Donaldson Christmas offer. I really hate the televised version and there have been an awful lot of those.

In fact I see no reason to revise my opinion here from a couple of years ago:.

“The reason, I think, for Donaldson’s dominance of the scene is that her work is in easy-to-read, rattle-it-off verse; it’s inoffensive; it’s got a nice digestible religion-free moral, whether about inclusivity (Room on the Broom), environmental awareness (Snail and the Whale), overcoming prejudice (The Smegs and the Smoos), collaboration (Zog) and conquering fears (The Gruffalo’s Child). It’s feel good, inoffensive to multicultural sensitivities, and bland. You can see why it’s up the BBC’s street.”

The Gruffalo is a good readaloud book, with a rhythm which owes a lot to Julia Donaldson’s musical background, ditto the Child, ditto, doubtless, the Granny. But there have been some pretty dismal offerings from our author over the years in between, for Julia Donaldson really does churn ‘em out. The reaction on getting a new Donaldson is, I’m afraid: aha, oh no, here we go again. But the critical thing about all of them is that they’re like an O blood group, universally acceptable, no matter what the race, religion or ethnicity of the reader.

And they’re of a higher quality than an awful lot of the stuff that is produced in the way of children’s reading, which I know because I get sent it; much of it didactically inclusive with no plot and a moral message that can be seen a mile off. There are some really, really awful children’s books out there, and the contrast with the Seventies, which, I think, really was a golden age of children’s books, is painful. I can only assume that the ones apparently written to a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) formula break even only because they’re required purchases by school and public libraries (my friend, a Montessori teacher, says that Ofsted inspections of the library sometimes make reference to inclusivity of content…hence the gay dads.) In this world of dud books, Julia Donaldson is the Maurice Sendak of our day.

Gruffalo Granny will be just fine. But I suppose it’s idle to ask if we can be spared the stupid hype, the BBC Christmas special, and, in due course, The Gruffalo Mummy.