“I dunked my brush in it,” he told the magazine Highlights for Children, “and decided that it would be red.” The answer, Mr. Bridwell explained, was simply that a jar of red paint was on his desk when he sat down to make his first drawing. Many readers over the years wondered why Clifford was red. The Clifford series included “Clifford Gets a Job,” “Clifford’s Halloween,” “Clifford’s Good Deeds,” “Clifford’s Family,” “Clifford’s Bedtime,” “Clifford’s Bathtime,” “Clifford’s Noisy Day” and “Clifford, We Love You.” All children would like that - to be forgiven for the mistakes they make.” He has good intentions, but his size makes him clumsy, so he causes damage.

“He’s a loving dog,” Mr. Bridwell once told the School Library Journal. The franchise grew to include games, stuffed animals and an animated show on public television with the actor John Ritter voicing Clifford.īy Clifford’s 50th birthday - a heralded event in children’s literature - he had become an animal celebrity on the order of the monkey Curious George or Babar the elephant. In all, they were estimated to have sold more than 120 million copies.

Mr. Bridwell’s publisher, Scholastic, went on to commission dozens of Clifford picture books, board books and pop-up volumes. But children, their parents, teachers and librarians had found something endearing about the story - perhaps Clifford’s loyalty to his owner, Emily Elizabeth, or her faithfulness to him. Mr. Bridwell’s classic character, a bloodhound the size of a house and the color of a fire engine, joined the literary animal kingdom in 1963 with the publication of “Clifford the Big Red Dog.” With text and illustrations by Mr. Bridwell, it was his first storybook.Īt the time, he was struggling to support his family as a commercial artist in New York, and he dismissed the book’s success as a fluke. The cause was a recurrence of prostate cancer, said his wife, Norma Bridwell. Norman Bridwell, the children’s author and illustrator who created Clifford the Big Red Dog, the clumsy, lovable canine who has helped teach millions of youngsters how to read, and how to face the world, died Dec. 12 at a hospital near his home on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

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