Norman Bridwell, creator of Clifford the Big Red Dog, passed away last Friday at the age of 86. With his canine creation, Bridwell experienced the kind of success that most children’s book illustrators dream of but few ever achieve.
Since the first Clifford title published over fifty years ago, he wrote and illustrated nearly 80 other Clifford books, selling more than 125 million copies and catapulting Scholastic into a major children’s publishing house. At the time of his death, two new Clifford stories had been completed and will be published posthumously: Clifford Goes To Kindergarten and Clifford Celebrates Hanukkah.
In the video below, Bridwell and his wife Norma talk about the history of the big red dog, which he once described as “Mr. Rogers with fur”:
