Mr Fib and Little Miss Surprise will become the latest characters to feature in the beloved Mr Men picture book series. More than 50 years since Mr Tickle, the first title in the series, was published, the books will join the classic range this autumn. The new books have been written and illustrated by Adam Hargreaves, who took over the running of the Mr Men and Little Miss cartoon empire after the death of his father, Roger Hargreaves, in 1988.
Mr Fib is a round, green character with a blue top hat who “fibs to impress people”, and the story will follow him as his fibs get out of hand and upset his friends. Meanwhile, the Little Miss Surprise book is about a purple, pink-haired character who “never knows what each day may bring” and takes Mr Quiet on a surprising day out. “Mr Fib has been rattling around in my imagination for a long while,” Hargreaves said.
“Little Miss Surprise, of course, popped into my head right out of the blue!” Emily Campan, the publisher of the books in the UK, said she and her colleagues were pleased that the new characters “reflect the world and personality traits children might encounter in real life”. Roger Hargreaves began the Mr Men series when Adam asked him what a tickle looked like, and he drew a small orange man with long wiggly arms in response. Other than providing that inspiration, Adam Hargreaves was not involved in the series in any way until after his father died suddenly aged 53, after a stroke.
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