MIFFY’s birthday is next week. She will be 69. She lives in Utrecht, where the Dom cathedral belltower usually gives a Miffy carillon concert, as it did four years ago when she became eligible for social security.
That said, she also has a home in Kentucky, in Williamstown aka Miffytown. The Dutch Philippo family has created an all-Miffy town on, of course, Main Street, an attraction for kids and grown-ups. Easily recognizable when you get to town: just look for the bright orange storefront.
Writer/illustrator Dick Bruna, born in Utrecht, wrote more than 200 booklets, including 32 about Miffy’s adventures. He began drawing the little bunny after telling his toddler son about the rabbit he had seen running the day before. It didn’t hurt that his father owned the Bruna publishing house, and later the Bruna bookstores. For the publishing company, Dick Bruna designed two thousand book covers.
At birth Hendrik Bruna was given the first name Henk, but because he grew up as a chubby little guy, his mother started calling him Dick, meaning fat in Dutch. That name stuck. Henk/Dick passed away in 2017. He lived to be 89.
