How the Gruffalo was made

"My original Gruffalo was scarier, with smaller eyes and bigger teeth and claws," says Axel Scheffler, the illustrator of Julia Donaldson's tale of an anxious mouse struggling to keep his courage up and a cowardly monster. The animals were also wearing clothes - "German fairytale clothes: the mouse had a Bavarian hat and lederhosen," says Scheffler. Donaldson wasn't too sure about that. The mouse in a checked shirt and the fox in a frock coat was "almost ok", she says. "But the snake in a bow tie was a definite problem". The book came into being after Donaldson's husband suggested she send her story to Scheffler as he had illustrated her first book. He really liked it and sent it off to a publisher who loved it and said that they were "desperate" to publish it. Surprisingly, perhaps, given how well-loved the story is now - taking together The Gruffalo's Child and other related Gruffalo books it has sold more than 10.5m copies, and been translated into languages including Polish, Hebrew, Lithuanian and Russian – it didn't take off straight away. "It wasn't an overnight success: it built slowly, through word-of-mouth from librarians and teachers – a bit like Harry Potter. It's not my favourite book of all those I've illustrated, but I don't mind that people identify me with The Gruffalo. He's a good character. It's fine," says Scheffler. Read the full story about how Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler made The Gruffalo