Look at each type of punctuation and explain why it has been used. The story uses lots of different types of punctuation.Which words rhyme? Can you think of other words that rhyme with those? See More Books from this author Teaching Ideas and Resources: English Stay up to date and receive our free email newsletter!.Have you made a great resource? Share it here!.Explore our library and use wonderful books in your lessons!.Use these videos as the starting point for learning in your classroom!.And of course, let’s not forget that she does all of this in flawless rhyme!Ī truly meaningful and entertaining story must have each element of the story deliver on its theme. She uses theme as an undertone, binding the elements so tightly together and only at the end does she reveal its radiant beauty. In the The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson masters the art of storytelling. But now he’s up against a goliath and here too, he outsmarts scary and strong with such ease and charm we simply fall in love with him and his tale. By the time the gruffalo comes along, mouse has already outsmarted the most clever and most threatening creatures (to him) of the forest.And the mouse cleverly outsmarts them, by ‘inventing’ the gruffalo. To children reading the book (or being read to), a gruffalo certainly sounds more scary than this threesome, but to the mouse, they were the scariest of all. Here too, scary and strong don’t need to look the part. But, these natural predators are also known for being smart the wise owl, the cunning fox, the sly snake.

The mouse outsmarts its natural predators – the owl, the fox and the snake.You don’t have to look smart to be smart. Julia Donaldson’s main character in this book is a mouse. Wit beats scary and strong even if it doesn’t look the part.I had missed something, many things in fact.

The story is about how wit beats scary and strong.Īnd then I went back and read the story again. I wondered if such a successful children’s book was perhaps so successful because its theme was tightly woven into the fibres of its story. I was asked to think about one of my favourite works of fiction, thinking about the dominant theme of the story. I recently used a prompt from Writing Fiction by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop. When I used to think about theme, what instinctively came to mind was an element of the story I would have to BS about on my next English test.īut since the dark ages of my high school years, I’ve learned to appreciate much about writing and its craft. A witty and charming young woman who passed away on March 28 th.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Sarah Leah Carman Fried.

The gruffalo book