Last week saw the 86th birthday of this very talented artist
Dick Bruna was born in the Netherlands, where he father ran the biggest Dutch publishing house – they had stores on every railway station in the country [like WHSmiths in the UK] Dick didn’t really want to go into managing the family business, so his brother took that over, while Dick continued his artwork, providing many book covers for the company. Like these for Simenon’s Maigret and Fleming’s Bond
One day back in 1955, on holiday with his little son, they saw a rabbit in a field. Bruna made up a bedtime story about the rabbit, and then drew some illustrations – and Miffy was born!
You realise that makes Miffy 58 years old now, don’t you? The stories were first published in the UK 50 years ago.
My girls enjoyed the Miffy stories when they were tiny, and I still have a small tote bag and a Miffy rucksack up in the loft, although we didn’t collect the books [our local library had a brilliant selection] The publishers are now busy updating the stories for ‘modern children’ [Miffy gets a Kindle?]
The UK Miffy Website is great fun [but can somebody tell me who is doing the commentary please, I’m sure that I recognise her voice]
I love the simplicity of the book illustrations and the brief rhyme on the facing page. Did your children like Miffy?
We used to get Miffy from the library when L was little. We loved them. L loves all bunnies.
ReplyDeleteCarolx
Miffy is older than I am, but I've never heard of him!
ReplyDeleteJane x
Miffy - memories!
ReplyDeleteI LOVED Miffy. In fact, I had planned on calling my first daughter Myfanwy (spelling?) just so I could shorten it to Miffy. Mr FD wasn't sure about that.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we didn't have any children, so that plan came to naught!
The boys never really fell in love with Miffy to the extent that their mother already had. We have one book only- and it was bought pre-children for their father, because it was about climbing up a mountain and camping in the rain!
ReplyDeleteI'd forgotten about Miffy--Jack and I used to check out Miffy books from the library. So nice to know a little about the artist behind her!
ReplyDeletexofrances
I loved miffy!! As well as Spot the Dog they were my two favourite books. I also remember a mouse called Maisie, but I think that might have been a TV programme
ReplyDelete