Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler team up again to create this funny and adorable sequel to The Gruffalo. One night, the Gruffalo?s child wanders into the woods to search for the Big Bad Mouse. But instead, she comes upon a small mouse in the woods . . . and decides to eat him! But wait, what is that? A shadow of a very large, scary creature falls on the ground. Could it be the Big Bad Mouse after all?

 In this sequel to The Gruffalo (Dial, 1999), the wide-eyed daughter of that story's title character decides to find the "Big Bad Mouse" that her father has told her so much about. "His eyes are like pools of terrible fire,/and his terrible whiskers are tougher than wire." With her stick doll tucked under her arm, the youngster enters the deep, dark woods and follows marks in the snow to snake, owl, and fox. When she finally finds a little mouse, she grabs him for a feast, but the clever creature tricks her into running away to the comfort of her sleeping father's arms. The full-color cartoons portray a suitably sympathetic child in the snow-filled woods. While children may appreciate the details (the stick doll, snake tracks in the snow, gruffalo child's cave drawings) in the art, lack of change from picture to picture and in perspective diminish its effectiveness. The plot, rhymes, and art are all slightly weaker than the original tale. Purchase this where the first book is popular.
--Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha's Public Library, WI