Christmas with The Gruffalo

The past Christmas is not our usual Christmas. Away from the equator and family, it was an almost-white Christmas with just daddy, mommy, Maxi LG and Mini LG. Of course, God was, and is always, with us.

The Gruffalo was shown on TV. This beautifully animated film is based on the story written by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It tells a tale of a mouse taking a walk through the deep dark woods in search of a nut. He made up an imaginary monster to trick his predators, but the monster turned out to be too real.

I wonder if Julia Donaldson got her inspiration from the Chinese folk tale of 狐假虎威。 The Gruffalo is similar to good old Chinese story of the fox scaring off the other animals by borrowing the terror of the tiger.

Maxi and Mini are familiar with the book before watching the film. It is amazing how they echoed the story and the characters through their reading experience.

In most circumstances, it is the other way round. Maxi and Mini usually echo their reading experience through their TV experience. Kids today are more familiar with films and cartoon characters, than to books.

Hence. one way to encourage kids to read is to introduce books of their favorite TV characters. At LITTLE GIANTS, available collections of popular TV characters include Chuggington, Dora the explorer, Peppa pig,  Charlie & Lola, Horrid Henry, Ben 10, etc.

Wishing you a year of happy reading.