PRINCE William has revealed his children’s favourite bedtime story is The Gruffalo by popular Sussex children’s writer Julia Donaldson.

The father of five-year-old Prince George, Princess Charlotte, three, and baby Prince Louis, who was born in April, met Ms Donaldson and the book’s illustrator Axel Scheffler at an event for the wildlife charity Tusk Trust.

They introduced themselves to Prince William, who is the charity’s patron, at the event outside his home at Kensington Palace in London.

They were attending because their picture book The Ugly Five, published last November, celebrates the wildlife of South Africa and was launched in partnership with Tusk Trust.

The royal said: “I know who you are. It’s a big hit in our household, The Gruffalo.”

Ms Donaldson, who lives in Steyning and was the 2011-2013 Children’s Laureate, wrote The Gruffalo in 1999.

The award-winning illustrated story for young children tells the story of a mouse, the protagonist of the book, taking a walk in a European forest.

The Gruffalo has sold more than 13 million copies, has been turned into a play in the West End and on Broadway and an Oscar-nominated animated film starring

Robbie Coltrane, James Corden and Helena Bonham Carter, and has its own website.

Signed copies of The Gruffalo are in the Steyning Bookshop in Steyning, where the writer makes regular appearances.

She is due to appear there on Saturday, October 20,

for a book signing to celebrate the release of three new books.

Her career in writing began after she and her husband Malcolm went busking and she wrote special songs about each country.

“The best one was in Italian about pasta,” she has written.

It led to a career in singing and songwriting for television, when she “became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window cleaning and horrible smells”.

The Gruffalo was her big breakthrough and she has now produced 184 published works.