Marie-Sabine Roger was a kindergarten teacher for ten years before she decided to dedicate herself to writing. She is now a renowned children’s author and has published around a hundred picture books and novels. She has received many awards and prizes in her native France and has had several novels for adults adapted for the screen.
Since she was a child, Marjolaine Leray has loved to draw. She studied applied arts at school, after which, armed only with a black and a red pencil, she scribbled her first picture book, which came out in 2009. Since then, she has written and illustrated several picture books and continues to pursue art through drawing, animation, photography, and graphic design. Visit her at marjolaineleray.com.
The Great Grrrrr
This editon published in 2023 by Red Comet Press, LLC, Brooklyn, NY
First published in France under the title Le Grand Grrrrr
Original French text © 2022 Marie-Sabine Roger
Illustrations © 2022 Marjolaine Leray
Original French edition © 2022 Editions du Seuil, 57, rue Gaston Tessier, 75019 Paris
English Translation © 2023 Red Comet Press
Translated by Angus Yuen-Killick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022948133
ISBN (HB): 978-1-63655-056-5
ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-63655-057-2
Red Comet Press • Brooklyn
Early one Monday morning, the Great Grrrrr parks his truck in front of a pretty cottage.
He brings a little package.
A small wrapped package.
The Great Grrrrr rings the doorbell. Clearly not hard enough. No one hears it.
He waits a moment, holding the package in his hands and singing tra-la-las. But the door remains closed.
The Great Grrrrr rings again. No one.
The rain starts to fall.
It falls plip plop, straight onto the head of the Great Grrrrr, onto his big head full of spikes, between his two ears, his large hairy ears.
The Great Grrrr scratches at the door, but nothing.
He taps with his fingertips, just as one should. Very politely.
He curls his front paws, and his hind legs go stiff.
He begins to feel anger rising.
The rain falls harder and harder. It is pouring down and starts to puddle around his feet.
The Great Grrrrr shivers in the cold. He growls and grumbles and grrrrs.
The Great Grrrrr knocks on the door with his big clawed paw. He hits it rather hard and dents the door, just a little. But it still doesn’t open.
The Great Grrrrr kicks so hard the whole house shakes and collapses in a small heap. But the door remains closed.
“Oh, come on!”
The Great Grrrrr loses control.
He growls louder and louder.
He destroys the walls and the windows, and crushes the house from top to bottom and side to side.
After an hour of noise, all that remains are a few shavings, a big, breathless, sweating Grrrrr, and a small wrapped package.
Down the street, with tiny steps, comes a very, very old grandma. She’s trembling in the rain, holding tightly onto her bag and umbrella.
Seeing the Great Grrrrr and his little package she smiles from behind her huge glasses. “Oh, it’s the present from my grandchildren for my ninety-ninth birthday,” she says.
She takes the ribbon-wrapped package from the hands of the embarrassed Grrrrr. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting. I went to get some bread. It takes a while as I can’t see very well.”
In the package there is a magnifying glass, as well as adventure and romance novels. “Thank you so much.
Yes, thank you, really! It’s so rare to meet patient people . . . Would you like some hot chocolate?”
The Great Grrrrr stammers, bewildered. All his anger is gone.
