Norman Bridwell, the author and illustrator of the Clifford the Big Red Dog book series began his career as a fluke. According to NPR, he was a struggling artist in New York and everyone was rejecting his illustrations. One publisher, however, mentioned that Bridwell should give writing a try because she didn’t think his drawings were strong enough on their own. She pointed to a girl riding a big red dog and said, “Maybe that’s a story.” We all know that became an ongoing story that many grew up on.

Clifford, the Big Red Dog

Now, almost 90 books have been published about Clifford and he’s widely known as an icon. Over 126 million copies have been sold and they’ve been published in 13 languages. There’s a cartoon series on PBS that’s worldwide and more recently the Clifford Collection was re-issued with the original books.

NPR’s Scott Simon interviewed Bridwell about his wildly successful series and we highly recommend reading it. Bridwell talks about his original name for Clifford – Tiny – how it’s been harder and harder to create original story lines and much more (nyc dog walker).

Read the full interview on NPR’s website.

Did you read Clifford books as a kid?

Source: Info and image via NPR