About Normal Bridwell

Growing up in Kokomo, Indiana, Norman Bridwell was always drawing. "I was not good at sports and my high school shop teacher, after a few days of class, took my tools away, telling me 'Here's a pad of paper instead. You seem to like to draw: stick to that,'" Bridwell remembers. But not everyone believed his drawings or writing would someday delight millions of children (and parents and teachers) around the world, a point he likes to stress when he visits schools. "I always liked to draw," Bridwell tells children, "but I was never considered very good. In school there was always someone better than me; the art teacher always liked their work better than mine. Teachers didn't like my writing either."

After high school, Bridwell wanted to turn his love of drawing into a career. He studied first at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis and then moved to New York, where he took classes at another art school, Cooper Union, for two years. He then went to work as a commercial artist. It was in 1962 while he was working as a freelance filmstrip and slide illustrator and drawing mostly cartoons that Bridwell decided to put together a portfolio of colorful drawings and make the rounds of children's book publishers. Now married, with an infant daughter — Emily — he was hoping to supplement his income with some extra work illustrating books.

Bridwell visited about fifteen publishing houses but there were no assignments to be had, and even worse, seemingly little hope for any in the future. One editor at Harper & Row went so far as to tell Bridwell that his art by itself was just not good enough, and she didn't think anybody would ask him to illustrate a book for them. But amazingly enough, she also made the suggestion that helped bring him the phenomenal success he enjoys today. She advised him to write a story to go along with one of his pictures. She picked out his sketch of a baby girl and a horse-sized bloodhound and casually said, "There might be a story in this," Bridwell remembers.

There are more than 150 Clifford titles, 129 million copies of Norman Bridwell's books are in print and many of his stories are translated into 13 languages.

Norman Bridwell and his wife, Norma, moved to Martha's Vineyard in 1969. Bridwell died on December 12, 2014. He was 86.