Oh Lordy. Here we go. The Gruffalo is back – or rather, the Gruffalo Granny – a new take on the most famous children’s character of the last 30 years other than Harry Potter. So, we’re going multi-generational with the monster; the last one, published over 20 years ago, was The Gruffalo’s Child…now it’s the oldie coming on the scene like Grendel’s mother, except not.

Julia Donaldson really does churn ‘em out

The publisher, Macmillan, for whom Julia Donaldson must have seemed like their very own JK Rowling – 18.2 million copies of the two titles and counting – announced that Granny Gruffalo would drop on 10 September, and crucially, it’s illustrated by Axel Scheffler, who is as critical to The Gruffalo as Quentin Blake was to Roald Dahl. Meanwhile there’s world-class hype underway. We’ve had a little taster already; an image of the Gruffalo Granny was projected onto the British Library (it’s that significant) and whereas the original Gruffalo was described thus:

“Who is this creature with terrible claws and........

© The Spectator