Miffy

Miffy was ‘born’ in 1955. While on holiday in Egmond Aan Zee, Dick Bruna would tell his eldest son, Sierk, bedtime stories about a little, white bunny, who scampered around the garden of their holiday home.

This bunny became the inspiration for Miffy.
 
Later, when Dick began sketching Miffy, he decided he would prefer to draw the bunny in a little dress, rather than a pair of trousers, and so Miffy became a little girl bunny.
 
In the early years, Miffy looked a bit like a fluffy toy with floppy ears, but from 1963 onwards, when the books were first published in square format, she became the Miffy we know today, gazing confidently at the reader with her little, black eyes.