Scheffler's gruffalo may seem a goofy hybrid of Max's wild things, but his cartoonlike illustrations build suspense via spot-art previews of the monster's orange eyes, black tongue and purple prickles until the monster's appearance in full. When a tiny snail meets a humpback whale, the two travel together to far-off lands. A friendly witch, hungry dragon, and muddy monster learn about friendship, and readers will delight in the surprising (and not too scary) ending.

Despite the derivative plot line, debut author Donaldson manipulates the repetitive language and rhymes to good advantage, supplying her story with plenty of scary-but-not-too-scary moments. The funny and adorable sequel to The Gruffalo. This witch broom handprint craft is the perfect activity to go along with the witty book Room on the Broom. By story's end, the gruffalo flees, and Mouse enjoys his nut lunch in peace. Quick-thinking Mouse then tells the monster, ''I'm the scariest creature in this deep dark wood./ Just walk behind me and soon you'll see,/ Everyone for miles is afraid of me.'' Fox, Owl and Snake appear to be terrified of the tiny mouse, but readers can plainly see the real object of their fears. Went the Witch: Room on the Broom Sound Book The Gruffalo My First Gruffalo: Gruffalo Growl Witchcraft, mailing list transparent background PNG clipart.

''Silly old Fox!'' says Mouse, ''Doesn't he know?/ There's no such thing as a gruffalo!'' Owl and Snake follow suit until, with a turn of the page, Mouse runs into the creature he has imagined.

When Mouse meets Fox in the ''deep dark wood,'' he invents a story about the gruffalo, described very much like Sendak's fearsome quartet of wild things-''He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.'' The gullible fox runs away when Mouse tells him that the gruffalo's favorite food is roasted fox. The eponymous character introduced by this British team owes a large debt to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

Gruffalo witch