'Noddy' to celebrate 60th Birthday with a book

London, Nov 17 (ANI): Noddy, a character created by British children's author Enid Blyton, will have a book written to mark its 60th anniversary next year.

The new book, provisionally entitled Noddy's Birthday Surprise, will be written by the late Blyton's granddaughter Sophie Smallwood, 38, and illustrated by Robert Tyndall, who began drawing the characters in 1953."It is a great honour, if a little daunting, to pick up the pen and take over from my grandmother," Times Online quoted Smallwood as saying.

According to the Telegraph, the book has been commissioned by Chorion, the firm that owns the rights to Noddy, and earns a reported 180million dollars a year from sales of the books.

Noddy had originally been published between 1949 and 1963, and it is the longest running show on British television since 1955, and though the book has undergone many changes, Smallwood said that she had no plans of undoing any of them.

The books have since sold 200million copies in 40 languages, making Blyton the sixth most translated author in the world, just behind William Shakespeare. (ANI)