New Gruffalo book by Julia Donaldson to be released more than 20 years after last

• The Gruffalo is a popular children’s picture book by English author Julia Donaldson.
• The original was released in 1999. A sequel, The Gruffalo’s Child, was published in 2004.
•  Macmillan Children’s Books has announced that a third book will be released in 2026.

Beloved children’s book The Gruffalo is returning with a new book - the first in more than two decades.

Set to be published by Macmillan Children’s Books in September 2026, the new book will see author Julia Donaldson collaborating again with illustrator Axel Scheffler.

Currently untitled, the third Gruffalo book is being touted by the publisher as “a fresh adventure with all the hallmarks of a Donaldson and Scheffler story”.

The first Gruffalo story tells the story of a wily mouse walking through a wood and evading a series of predators, culminating in the fictional Gruffalo.

The original story is written in rhyming couplets and is accompanied by cartoon-like illustrations by Scheffler.

After producing the best-selling original in 1999 and 2004’s sequel, The Gruffalo’s Child, Scheffler and Donaldson have continued to work in partnership, but this will be the first new release featuring their most successful and beloved character in two decades.

The original Gruffalo book was released in 1999. Image / Macmillan Children's Books.

Announcing the upcoming release, Donaldson said she was motivated to bring the work to fruition after Britain’s National Literacy Trust (NLT) started using her previous two books in a campaign to reverse a decline in children’s reading.

“I actually had the basic idea for the story a long time ago, but couldn’t think how to develop it,” she said.

“It was only when the NLT, whose work I’m very impressed by, used the first two books as part of their Early Words Matter programme that I was spurred on to get my idea out of the cupboard and see once and for all if I could turn it into a really satisfying story. To my surprise, I managed to do just that!”

The original Gruffalo book has sold more than 13.5 million copies and won several prizes for children’s literature.

Donaldson has said previously the book was inspired by a Chinese folk fable called The Fox that Borrows the Terror of a Tiger about a hungry tiger who tries to catch a fox.

An audiobook version of The Gruffalo, read by Imelda Staunton, was released in 2002. On Christmas Day in 2009, the BBC aired an animated adaptation of the story.

A stage version of the tale is set to be performed in Auckland and Hastings in July.