THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD is the second film to be adapted from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s hugely successful Gruffalo book series. Aimed to charm toddlers and adults alike, the film is brought to life by some big name British actors and succeeds in being wistfully innocent and fun.

Helen Bonham Carter narrates the story of the Gruffalo’s Child (Shirley Henderson) who has been warned by her father not enter the wood near their house because of the Big Bad Mouse (James Corden). Of course the Gruffalo’s Child ignores these instructions and sneaks off at night into the snow covered forest. While there she encounters a series of reappearing characters from the first film including Snake (Rob Brydon), Owl (John Hurt) and Fox (Tom Wilkinson) before her final encounter with Mouse.

The initial encounter with the lockjaw suffering Snake is particularly enjoyable…

Eschewing any innuendo or knowing winks to adult viewers that many animations have adopted in the post-Shrek world, THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD instead returns to a more beguiling form of children’s entertainment. The jokes are child-friendly slapstick and the narration is done in gentle rhyming couplets. The initial encounter with the lockjaw suffering Snake is particularly enjoyable, as is Fox being piled under snow. The characters are memorably designed and the snowy landscapes are brilliantly animated. The film has a slender running time of 30 minutes and is perfectly paced for its young audience.