Clifford the Big Red Dog Coloring Pages

Clifford is a dog so big that a rowboat makes a good water bowl and a lighthouse is about his height. Every one of these Clifford the Big Red Dog coloring pages plays with that size, in a gentle way: he is too big for his doghouse, big enough to shelter a whole group of children from the rain, and just big enough to let squirrels build their nests on his head while he naps.

His friends are all here. Emily Elizabeth brushes his fur on the beach, hugs his huge nose and reads a book curled up against him while he sleeps. T-Bone the bulldog plays tug of war with him in a meadow, and Cleo the poodle balances on the tip of his nose, then dances in a tutu on a tree stump while Clifford watches.

The rest of the pages follow the seasons around town. At the harbor, Clifford holds a mooring rope in his mouth, shakes off water on the dock, sits beside the lighthouse and swims alongside the ferry. On the farm he helps with the hay wagon, pulls a rope by the barn, rolls a wagon wheel back to its cart and peers into the barn window at the cows and hens. In autumn he pulls a wheelbarrow of pumpkins and sits in the pumpkin patch beside a jack o'lantern. In winter he wears a striped scarf in the snow, drags a sled of firewood and falls asleep curled around an igloo. In spring and summer he wears a crown of daisies, lies in the tulips among the bees, gets tangled in a kite string, steps over a picket fence, balances a beach ball on his nose, paddles with the crabs, takes a bubble bath and leaves a paw print in the sand big enough to hold a bucket and spade. One page is a birthday picnic, with a cake shaped like a bone.

Where Clifford came from

Clifford was created by Norman Bridwell, an illustrator who could not find work drawing for other people's books and decided to write one himself. Clifford the Big Red Dog was published by Scholastic in 1963. Bridwell first wanted to call the dog Tiny; his wife suggested Clifford, the name of her own imaginary friend as a child. He went on to write and draw Clifford books for the rest of his life, and the dog became the star of an animated series on PBS.

The story everyone remembers explains the size. Clifford was the smallest puppy in his litter, and Emily Elizabeth chose him anyway. She loved him so much that he grew, and grew, and kept growing. The books are about what it means to be very big and very kind: Clifford makes mistakes because of his size, fixes them because of his heart, and never stops being a good dog.

Clifford's colors

Clifford is bright red, all over: head, body, ears and tail, with a black nose and dark eyes. It is the one color on the page that should be exactly right, so pick the brightest red in the box and keep it for him. His collar can be any color you like.

His friends are just as easy:

• T-Bone is a small yellow bulldog.
• Cleo is a purple poodle with fluffy pom-poms.
• Emily Elizabeth usually wears a simple dress or a sweater, in any color that stands out next to all that red.

Because Clifford is so red, the backgrounds look best in cooler colors: blue sea and sky at the harbor, green grass on the farm, white snow in winter. A red dog in a red barn disappears; a red dog next to a blue lighthouse jumps off the page.

Big shapes for small hands

Clifford is drawn in large, soft shapes, which makes most of these pages friendly to preschoolers, and a child who only colors the dog in red has already done the important part. The pages with the least around him are listed under Quick to color, above the grid:

• A drink from a rowboat
• A big hug
• Story time

The busier pages bring in pumpkins, firewood, cobblestones or barn boards. Lots of detail begins with:

• Firewood sled
• Pumpkin harvest
• Bath time

Being big and being kind

The Clifford books are often used at home and in preschool to talk about kindness, and the pages lend themselves to it. Ask a child what Clifford is doing to help on each page: sheltering children from the rain, bringing back a wagon wheel, pulling the pumpkins home, holding a boat so it does not drift away. Then ask what they could do to help someone this week. A finished page with a small promise written on the back ("I will help set the table") makes a good reminder on the fridge.

Printing a big red dog

Every page is a free A4 PDF drawn at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" shrinks the drawing by about six percent so every ear and tail stays on the paper. The printing guide shows the setting. Add to pack gathers a whole afternoon of pages into one file. More dogs of every size are in the dog coloring pages and the Paw Patrol coloring pages, and more classic children's characters in the Curious George coloring pages and the Bluey coloring pages.