When she gave life to the fearsome Gruffalo a decade ago, Julia Donaldson had no idea the creature would grow so big. Now, as it thumps and claws its way all over the season of goodwill, the writer tells Nick Duerden how she has had to confront the demon that's taken over her life
The Independent, Sunday, 29 November 2009
Left - Julia Donaldson: 'Imagine if you had written an article 10 long years ago, and all everyone ever wanted to do was keep on bringing it up, even though you had written lots of perfectly good articles since. The Gruffalo seems to overshadow everything else I do, at least in the media.'Photo by Martin Hunter
If the Gruffalo, with its warts, bad teeth and jaundiced eyes, has seemed inescapable recently, then it is with good reason.
The children's picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, an occasion marked in b
ookshops and school assembly halls up and down the country for months on end. The stage show, which has been in repertory since 2001 – not just in the UK, but across America, Chile, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia – is about to transfer to London's West End for the duration of the Christmas season.And on Christmas Eve it will be one of the BBC's seasonal TV highlights as a half-hour animated special, voiced by Robbie Coltrane, Rob Brydon and Helena Bonham-Carter. The listeners of Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show, meanwhile, recently voted the book the nation's favourite bedtime story. And there came further proof last month of just how far the tale has now seeped into global consciousness when our incumbent Prime Minister was referred to as the Gruffalo of modern politics. (Need one point out that this was not a compliment?)
But on an overcast November afternoon at her home in Glasgow, the author herself would, quite frankly, rather talk about anything else than the book which has sold four million copies around the world.
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