After more than 20 years of roaming deep wood, the Gruffalo returns to a new book, that the author Julia Donaldson says that she was stimulated to write by a campaign to reverse a drop in children’s reading.
The book will be published in 2026 and will be the third of the beloved animal – after the best -selling original in 1999 and the 2004 suite, The Gruffalo’s Child.
Donaldson said that she had the idea “a long time ago”, but that she was inspired to finally put the pen on paper after the National Literacy Trust (NLT) began to use the two previous books in his diagram of early words.
According to The NLTOnly 35% of children aged eight to 18 said they liked to read during their free time in 2024.
This is the lowest level since the charitable organization began to collect data in 2005.
Some of those who have had the original books have read them as young children will now be able to read the new story to their own children.
The first picture book saw a humble mouse meet a fox, a snake and an owl in deep and dark wood – before meeting the Gruffalo itself, and scareing the fur monster.
Then, in Gruffalo’s child, the character’s offspring went in search of the “big and bad mouse”.
“It’s always a challenge to write a sequel,” Donaldson said in a statement. “Five years have passed between the publication of the Gruffalo and the Gruffalo child, and now it will be more than 20 between the Gruffalo child and the third book.
“I actually had the basic idea of history a long time ago, but I couldn’t think about developing it.
“It is only when the NLT, whose work that impressed me very much, used the first two books as part of their word program of words from the first words on which I was stimulated to get my idea out of the closet and see once and for all if I could transform it into a really satisfactory story. To my surprise, I managed to do this!”
She said she was “delighted” when the illustrator Axel Scheffler returned on board. “I really hope that children – and adults too – will appreciate the new story, because I know what wonderful shared experience can be,” she added.
The children’s books of the editor Macmillan presented the new book as “a fresh and exciting adventure which has all the characteristics of a Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler Classic”.
The first two books sold 18 million copies, said Macmillan.
The Director General of the NLT, Jonathan Douglas, said that “reading and sharing stories are essential to shape the development of the speech and the early language of a child”.
Since the publication of the two main books of Gruffalo, there have been spin-offs and animated versions of the two, the first of which was nominated for an Oscar.
Donaldson wrote more than 200 pounds in total and told the BBC last year that it was “incredible” that the Gruffalo had such an impact, but that it thought “that it was too much attention”.
