The winner, winner chicken dinner today is –

Clifford’s Christmas

By Norman Bridwell

In case you have been living under a rock, Clifford is a big red dog. The first book in the series was Clifford the Big Red Dog and it was published in 1963.  Clifford is popular in board books, paperback books, videos, and he even has a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

In this adventure, Clifford and his owner, Emily Elizabeth, get ready for Christmas. When Santa arrives at Clifford’s giant dog house, he has trouble finding the chimney and he falls off the roof and into Clifford’s stocking. Clifford saves the day by getting Santa out of the stocking and back on his way delivering presents.

Norman Bridwell is the author of the Clifford series. Bridwell tells in his biography that he was never really very good at anything. He loved to draw but was never seen as the best in the class. He decided to pursue his dream and became a commercial artist. After the birth of his daughter, Emily Elizabeth, he thought he would try and supplement his income by illustrating books. He put together a portfolio and went to the New York publishing houses. He was told repeatedly that he they didn’t think that he was good enough to illustrate books. The editor at Harper & Row did suggest that there might be a story in one of his sketches.  He took up her suggestion and within three weeks he had written, illustrated, and his book had been accepted by Scholastic for publication. There are now over 126 million Clifford books in print.

Thanks for reading!