Gruffalo Crumble and Other Recipes: The Gruffalo Cookbook

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For lots more information on the Gruffalo books, games and activities visit www.gruffalo.com About This Edition ISBN: There are loads of other ideas like this in ‘‘Crumble’’, including a rather magnificent chocolate cake. Each recipe has a photo showing what the finished product should look like and the steps are split into elements that an adult should do e.g. slicing and dicing, and the elements a child can do i.e. decorating. The steps can be a little too simple at times as the book is set out to be easy to read; this does mean that a little bit of winging it may be required as you think exactly how you are meant to chop or mix something. The Gruffalo has a very odd palette; many of us may be meat eaters, but not many of us eat it raw or in the form of a mouse or frog! The idea of eating the same things as a hairy beast does not appeal at first, but what if each dish was actually a fun recipe that you could make together? Mouse toast or Frog Muffins, yummy! The Mouse Toast could have simply been a fried egg on toast, but it is much more than this. The designers of this cookbook have taken the characters of the ‘‘Gruffalo’’ books and made something edible with them. To make this toast you need to cut a mouse shape out of some toast, then fry an egg in the middle and then add olives and chives to make it look like a mouse’s face. This may all seem simple enough, but there is so much more fun to be had creating a meal that looks like a mouse, than just egg and bread. I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs.

It is hard to imagine, but the original Gruffalo book came out almost twenty years ago. This is a franchise that just keeps rolling on. Certainly, you can buy the book or the sequel, but if you visit a shop you will find Gruffalo toys, cards, even egg cups. Each year brings with it a new idea of how to push the Gruf and pals. 2016 is the year of the recipe book, but will it live up to the quality of the original? I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).With twenty-four recipes specially designed for adults to use with children, easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions and lots of hints and tips on what to do next, Gruffalo Crumble and Other Recipes is a great way to introduce Gruffalo fans to cooking and baking. I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.

Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta. My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers. One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.