So, thanks Julia. Bedtime reading will never be the same again.

How can I, or any other parent, now expect to read how the mouse avoided being gobbled up by a Gruffalo without having someone leaping about pretending to be a fox, an owl or a snake?

How can we get the right emphasis?

How can we be possibly expected to know the lines so well? How can I be expected to entertain my children again? Thanks.

Thanks for a wonderful journey through your books that had my children and, as far as I could see, every child in the audience rapt with attention (and every adult happy to shed the shackles of inhibition and merrily join in the fun).

Julia Donaldson presented ?The Gruffalo and Friends?, a tour through some of her hugely popular books, at the Daylesford Theatre on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as part of this year?s Bermuda Festival.

With books like ?The Gruffalo? and ?A Squash and A Squeeze?, Julia is the most successful picture-book author currently writing in the UK.

Her act was quite minimalist, partly explained by the fact she could not bring all her props on a plane, but I feared that whatever the reason, it was not going to be enough to capture the young audience.

I worried that a small, stuffed Gruffalo, was nothing like the Gruffalo of thousands of dreams and daddy impersonations. I felt an imaginary broomstick was never going to compete with the brooms yanked out of cupboards and flown around the garden.

Fortunately, a child?s imagination does not rely on props.

It can catch fire through well-written and well-told stories and Julia, ably assisted by her husband Malcolm (and her Auntie Mary), is expert in both.

It did not matter that Malcolm played the owl, the fox, the snake and many other characters, as the children knew the stories, and the stories, thanks to Julia and Malcolm came to life.

They came to life through her narrative, her relaxed rapport with the audience, and with clever audience participation that saw children ? and dads ? brought down to play the characters they had only previously read.

She skilfully guided adults and children through their parts without breaking her stride, and kids were almost leaping off their seats to be picked next.

It just shows that children do not need computer-generated images and fast-paced action to be thoroughly entertained.

Any regrets from the show ? that it did not last a little longer and that there was no, giant, scary Gruffalo. But those are churlish criticisms because reading ?The Gruffalo? will never be the same again.

My wife and I are already planning the double act....

After the show, Julia admitted she didn?t think Bermuda audiences would be as well-versed in her stories as those in the UK ? Bermuda?s kids proved her wrong.