Many a Google doodle on Roger Hargreaves' 76th birthday

New Delhi: Google has put up at least 16 different doodles on its home page to celebrate the 76th birth anniversary of English author and illustrator Charles Roger Hargreaves. Hargreaves is best known for his series of Mr Men and Little Miss books for children.

Born on May 9, 1935, in Cleckheaton, England, Hargreaves worked in his father's dry cleaning business, then moved to the world of advertising and finally came back to his original ambition, cartooning. In 1971, he wrote his first Mr. Men book, Mr Tickle, which was a runaway success and later led to the animated series Mr. Men Show, on BBC. A decade later, the Little Miss series of books began to appear. His books have sold millions of copies around the world and have been translated into many languages. Hargreaves died of a stroke on September 11, 1988.

While Google has recently been doing a number of animated doodles, the last few have been static images. The different Roger Hargreaves doodles that appear on every refresh of the Google home page feature popular Mr. Men and Little Miss characters including:

Little Miss Magic, Little Miss Tiny, Little Miss Naughty, Little Miss Shy, Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Chatterbox, Little Miss Curious, Mr. Messy, Mr. Rush, Mr. Happy, Mr. Dizzy, Mr. Forgetful, Mr. Tickle, Mr. Bump, Mr. Slow and Mr. Funny.

For a dozen years, Google has been occasionally swapping its everyday logo for a doodle. The Google doodles, an artistic take on the Google logo, have gained immense popularity over the past few years and the Google doodle team has put out commemorative doodles on numerous events of international or national importance, ranging from news events, civic milestones, birthdays, death anniversaries and important dates in history. Google estimates it has created more than 900 doodles since 1998, with 270 of them running in 2010. Some appear globally, and others are tailored for local markets.

On May 8, Google celebrated Mother's Day with a greeting-card-like doodle on its home page.

Google, however, did not put up a Doodle to honour the 150th birth anniversary of literary great and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore, an icon even today for millions of people worldwide for his writing and philosophy, was born on May 7, 1861 in Kolkata.