Corner Books: How 'Clifford' books got started

It was 1963, and Norman Bridwell, the father of an infant daughter, was broke and desperately searching for work as a commercial artist in New York City.

Figuring he had to try everything, Bridwell put together a portfolio of illustrations and began to make the rounds of children's publishers. He didn't have any luck, but an editor at Harper & Row looked closely at one sample, which showed a little girl with a huge red dog, and suggested that "there might be a story in this," Bridwell recounted in a recent interview.

Bridwell headed home and three days later, he had created the story and illustrations for "Clifford, the Big Red Dog." He dropped it off at Harper & Row, where luck intervened in the form of a woman whose job it was to read unsolicited manuscripts, otherwise known as "the slush pile." Knowing that Harper & Row wouldn't be interested in Bridwell's manuscript, the woman "put it in her purse without telling anyone" and took it to Scholastic, Bridwell said.

Three weeks, later, an editor from Scholastic called and said the firm would like to publish Bridwell's book about the clumsy but lovable dog and his owner, the spunky Emily Elizabeth. It turned out to be a momentous decision; today there are more than 126 million "Clifford" books in print in 13 languages, and a PBS show starring the big red dog is now in its ninth season.

Clifford's latest adventure is titled "Clifford the Champion" (Cartwheel/Scholastic, $15.99). In this book, Emily Elizabeth enters her canine companion in "America's Super Dog" contest. While Clifford's size causes him problems during the contest, he finds that there are other ways to be a winner.

In a recent telephone interview from his Martha's Vineyard home, Bridwell, 81, said he attributes much of his success to luck.

"I was just trying to find work," he said. "I'd been out of work and had a brand new baby daughter who wasn't sleeping through the night and my mother was visiting from Indiana. It was a very tense time … I'm so lucky. If that woman hadn't come in that day (to look at the slush pile), things would have been very different."

After Bridwell sold the first "Clifford" manuscript, his wife Norma suggested he try to create more stories about the dog and Emily Elizabeth, who was named after their daughter.

"I told her, 'Don't count on it. This one is just a fluke. I don't know if there will ever be another one."

Fortunately, Bridwell had plenty of stories to tell about Clifford and Emily Elizabeth and, in 1970, he was making enough money from the series and other children's books that he was able to give up his other commercial artwork. While Bridwell's books about "Clifford" have never been embraced by critics, millions of young readers love Bridwell's cheerful stories and simple artwork.