The Gruffalo

The Gruffalo is a children's picture book by the English author Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It tells the story of a mouse strolling in a wood and encountering a series of predators culminating in the fictional 'Gruffalo'. The Gruffalo was first published in 1999 in Britain by Macmillan Children's Books. It is about 700 words long and is written in rhyming couplets featuring repetitive verse. It is an example of a trickster story and was inspired by a Chinese folk tale called "The Fox that Borrows the Terror of a Tiger". The book has sold over 13.5 million copies and has won several prizes for children's literature, including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.

It has been adapted into plays and an Academy Award-nominated animated film. The book has inspired a range of merchandise, a commemorative coin, a theme park ride in Chessington World of Adventures in England, and a series of woodland trails. In 2004 The Gruffalo was followed by a sequel—The Gruffalo's Child—also written by Donaldson and illustrated by Scheffler.