The Gruffalo voted favourite bedtime story by Radio 2 listeners
Listeners to BBC Radio 2 have voted Julia Donaldson’s timeless children’s tale The Gruffalo as the nation’s favourite bedtime story. Nearly 20,000 listeners voted from a shortlist of eight books and the Gruffalo received around one-fifth of the vote. A.A. Milne’s Winnie The Pooh came second and Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar came third.
The eight shortlisted books voted for from a long list of 36 stories were:
- Charlie And The Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
- Each Peach Pear Plum – Janet and Allan Ahlberg
- Five On A Treasure Island – Enid Blyton
- The Gruffalo – Julia Donaldson
- The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle
- Where The Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak
- Winnie The Pooh – AA Milne
Written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, the book has sold more than four million copies worldwide since it was published a decade ago.
It tells of an innovative mouse who manages to escape the clutches of an owl, a fox and a snake before finally outwitting the terrifying Gruffalo itself. The book drew a fifth of the votes, beating runner-up Winnie The Pooh and third-placed The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
The Gruffalo has also been adapted for television by BBC1 – with Robbie Coltrane in the title role – and will be screened at Christmas. The cast also features Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt and Tom Wilkinson.
The book has won several prizes for children’s literature, and has been made into a West End and Broadway play.
It is intended for readers aged from three to seven.
The long list was compiled by the Jeremy Vine Show, Michael Rosen and in consultation with The Reading Agency, the Youth Libraries Group and the Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians. Voting opened at noon on Monday 2 November and closed at 2.00pm on Thursday 5 November.
Listeners were invited to vote via the Radio 2 website at www.bbc.co.uk/radio2. The site features a short extract of each of the shortlisted stories, voiced by Jeremy Vine, and the long list of 36 titles. Published by Macmillan Children’s Books and celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, The Gruffalo is a worldwide classic and has sold over four million copies around the globe.
Posted: November 7th, 2009
Author: Lee
Categories: Julia Donaldson
Comments
Your mention of Enid Blyton’s Five On A Treasure Island is very encouraging to many a fan of Enid Blyton. Incidentally, I have just published a book on Enid blyton, titled, The Famous Five:A Personal Anecdotage (www.bbotw.com).
Stephen Isabirye
Do you have something to add to this post? Please leave a comment
Book of the Month
Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill
Some doors are better left closed . . . In Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in, no one comes out. And it’s been that way for fifty years. Until the night watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and investigates. What he experiences is enough to change his life forever.
Latest interviews
Interviews plus question and answer sessions with authors, narrators and publishers.
Must-reads
The following reviews are of books that begin the very best fantasy series available.
Special Feature: Fantasy Book Review talks to the Book View Cafe
Book View Cafe is a cooperative site created by a group of writers - including internationally renowned authors Katharine Kerr, Ursula Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre - who want to take advantage of the internet's possibilities for reaching a wider audience and to distribute their work directly to their readers. The Book View Cafe is a place where you can find free, original fiction plus the authors' best and out-of-print work for a fee. Fantasy Book Review spoke to Book View Cafe member, science fiction author and memoirist Chris Dolley in February 2010.
Special Feature: Understanding the author of Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll, the elusive author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, has been the subject of enduring fascination for the past hundred years. The destruction of many major documents about his personal life by his descendants has only magnified the mystery. Jenny Woolf's biography, published to coincide with the release of the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland film, lays waste to the myths and suspicions that have obscured Carroll's reputation by placing him firmly in the context of his own time.
My daughters love the gruffalo – didn’t you know! They chant it as I read and love all the descriptions of what it looks like. Also love the Gruffalo’s child. Great books!