Rod Campbell (born 4 May 1945) is a
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
author and illustrator of several popular children's books including the classic lift-the-flap
board book
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images.
The ima ...
''Dear Zoo''.
Born in
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
in 1945, he was brought up in
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
and returned to Britain where he completed a doctorate in
organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...
. In 1980 he became involved in children's publishing where he began designing innovative books with interactive elements and repetitive phrases.
In 1987 he founded Campbell Blackie Books in partnership with his publisher Blackie. Campbell Books (as it became in 1989) was sold in 1995 to
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd in the United Kingdom and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC in the United States) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be on ...
.
''Dear Zoo''
Campbell's most famous work is ''Dear Zoo'', first published in 1982. Campbell says that he was inspired by seeing other early lift-the-flap books, such as ''
Spot the Dog
Spot or SPOT may refer to:
Places
* Spot, North Carolina, a community in the United States
* The Spot, New South Wales, a locality in Sydney, Australia
* South Pole Traverse, sometimes called the South Pole Overland Traverse
People
* Spot Col ...
'', and wanted to incorporate the flaps into a story so that they made sense. He then thought of explorers sending animals to zoos years ago in crates, and hit upon the structure of each flap being a container holding a different animal.
Enormously popular among the under 5s in Britain, the book has been translated into Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Persian, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Panjabi, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese, as well as being published in a number of formats and alongside various merchandise.
[
A spin-off Christmas title, ''Dear Santa'', was first published in 2004 and follows the same format, with different gifts being considered by Santa hidden under flaps.
In 2017, the 35th anniversary of Dear Zoo was celebrated through a partnership with London Zoo and the publication of an Anniversary Edition in a slipcase format.]
Notable works
*''Dear Zoo''
*''Dear Santa''
*''ABC Zoo''
*''Oh Dear!''
*''It's Mine!''
*''I'm Hungry!''
*''I Won't Bite!''
*''Baby's Busy Book''
*''My Presents''
*''Noisy Farm''
*''Farm 123''
*''Farm Babies''
*''Buster's Day''
*''Buster's Zoo''
*''Here's Buster, But Where's Teddy?''
*''Buster Goes To Playschool''
*''Buster Gets Dressed''
*''Buster Keeps Warm''
*''Buster's Bedtime''
*''The Pop-Up Farm''
*''The Pop-Up Jungle''
References
External links
Official websitePan Macmillan website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Rod
1945 births
Living people
Scottish children's writers