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Beijingkids has been an essential family resource for Beijing international families since 2006. And just as kids grow up in the blink of an eye, Beijing has grown and changed almost beyond recognition in that time. In Throwback Thursday we jump in the time machine, traveling through our 14-year strong blog archives to dig out the most entertaining, fascinating, and thought-provoking stories for your reading pleasure. Ready? Let’s go…
This week, we travel back to May of 2007, when Julia Donaldson, the best-selling author of dozens of children’s books including the classic The Gruffalo came to Beijing. Even back then, Donaldson was already hot property, as her book had already sold over 1M copies and been translated into dozens of languages. Yet even further success lay before her: now in 2020 the book has sold over 13M worldwide copies, she has been awarded an Order of the British Empire, and a special commemorative Gruffalo 50p coin was even minted in the UK in 2019. Back in 2007, she did a special reading at The Bookworm and our writer Simon Fowler managed to catch her afterward for an interview.advertisement
Fowler and Donaldson discussed how the Gruffalo was originally inspired by a classic Chinese folk tale (狐假虎威hújiǎhǔwēim lit. fox fake tiger power), the merits of reading her rhyming-couplet storybook aloud, and the amazing success of her book. Since then, she’s gone on to write dozens and dozens of other books, including many collaborations with The Gruffalo illustrator Axel Sheffler, including a direct sequel, The Gruffalo’s Child.
Since that time, a few key things have changed: the beloved Bookworm bookstore in Sanlitun is no more, and this very magazine was at that time going by the name ‘tbjkids‘, as an off-shoot of the already popular the Beijinger magazine. Yet as a proud aunty to seven adorable little humans, I can testify that the allure of this classic story has not faded: it’s the book I am always happy to read when I get to visit with my nieces and nephews, and they never seem to get sick of it either. If you haven’t yet discovered the joys of this classic tale, we can’t recommend it enough.
Click "read more" to read the original article and interview.
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Photos: Amazon.co.uk, Gruffalo.com