My friend's little boy passed away yesterday. They took him away from the beeping machines and into a private family room, where they read grufallo to him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_GruffaloThe GruffaloFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe Gruffalo is a children's book by writer and playwright
Julia Donaldson, illustrated by
Axel Scheffler, that tells the story of a mouse's walk in the woods. The book has sold over 10.5 million copies, has won several prizes for children's literature, and has been developed into plays on both the
West End and
Broadway.
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The protagonist of
The Gruffalo is a mouse. The story of the mouse's walk through the woods unfolds in two phases; in both, the mouse uses cunning to evade danger.
On his way the mouse encounters several dangerous animals (a
fox, an
owl, and a
snake). Each of these animals, clearly intending to eat the mouse, invites him back to their home for a meal. The cunning mouse declines each offer. To dissuade further advances, he tells each animal that he has plans to dine with his friend, a
gruffalo, whose favourite food happens to be the relevant animal, and describes the features of the gruffalo's monstrous anatomy. Frightened that the gruffalo might eat it, each animal flees. Knowing the gruffalo to be fictional, the mouse gloats thus:
Silly old fox/owl/snake, doesn't he know?
there's no such thing as a gruffalo! After being quit of the last animal, the mouse is shocked to encounter a real gruffalo – with all the frightening features the mouse thought that he was inventing. The gruffalo threatens to eat the mouse, but again the mouse is cunning: he tells the gruffalo that he, the mouse, is the scariest animal in the forest. Laughing, the gruffalo agrees to follow the mouse as he demonstrates how feared he is. The two walk through the forest, encountering in turn the animals that had earlier menaced the mouse. Each is terrified by the sight of the pair and runs off – and each time the gruffalo becomes more impressed with the mouse's apparent toughness. Exploiting this, the mouse threatens to eat the gruffalo, which flees.
The story is based on a traditional Chinese folk tale of a fox that borrows the terror of a
tiger. Donaldson was unable to think of rhymes for "tiger" so invented one for "know" instead
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The Gruffalo has sold over 3.5 million copies in 31 editions worldwide. Translations include
Dutch (
De Gruffalo ),
Estonian (
Grühvel ),
French (
Gruffalo ),
German (
Der Grüffelo ),
Hebrew (
Trofoti ),
Irish, Italian (
A spasso col mostro ),
Lithuanian (
Grufas ),
Polish, Russian (
Груффало ),
Slovene (
Zverjasec ),
Spanish (
El Grúfalo ),
Scottish Gaelic, Swedish (
Gruffalon ),
Turkish (
Tostoraman ), and
Welsh (
Y Gryffalo ).
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_kGVjH8_Yg[/youtube]
Uploaded by edandakke on Feb 23, 2007