Fiction - Animals - Insects

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Name: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Author: Eric Carle
ISBN: 9781852691240

by Eric Carle

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Overview

The caterpillar's journey from a little egg to a beautiful caterpillar is a timeless story adored by children. Eric Carle's all-time classic is available in dual-language editions, enabling the teacher to raise the language awareness of the whole class a

Follows the progress of a hungry little caterpillar as he eats his way through a varied and very large quantity of food until, full at last, he forms a cocoon around himself and goes to sleep. Die-cut pages illustrate what the caterpillar ate on successive days.

About the Author, Eric Carle

Eric Carle divides his time between the Florida Keys and the mountains of North Carolina. Visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Biography

Ever since he began innovating the look and function of children's stories in the late 1960s, Eric Carle has remained an author whose stories reliably hit the bestseller lists and remain on kids' bookshelves through generations.

He began as a designer of promotions and ads, and one illustration of a red lobster helped jump-start his career. The lobster caught the eye of author Bill Martin, Jr.; Martin asked Carle to illustrate the now-classic 1967 title Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and a career was born.

Born in Syracuse, New York but brought by his immigrant parents back to Germany when he was six, Carle was educated in Stuttgart and designed posters for the United States Information Center there after graduating from art school. He finally returned to the country he missed so much as a child in 1952.

He eventually began procuring work on children's titles, and found himself becoming increasingly involved in them. "I felt something of my own past stirring in me," he wrote in a 2000 essay. "An unresolved part of my own education needed reworking, and I began to make books -- books for myself, books for the child in me, books I had yearned for. I became my own teacher -- but this time an understanding one."

He began his career with the 1968 title 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo; but his next title, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, is what still endears him to young readers today. Employing his bright, collage style and lending an immediacy to the tale by manifesting the caterpillar's hunger in actual holes in the pages, Carle began what would be a long career of creative approaches to simple stories. From the chirp emerging from The Very Quiet Cricket to the delightful fold-out pages in Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, Carle's books provide surprises that make his stories come alive in ways that many titles for preschoolers do not.

Carle's style, with its diaphanous, busy and bold artwork, is perfect for engaging new readers. His stories are also popular with parents and educators for their introductions to the natural world and its cycles. It's a particular pleasure to follow Carle into different corners of the world and see what can be learned from the creatures who live in them.

Good To Know

Regularly asked where he gets his ideas, Carle is quoted on his publisher's web site as responding: "Of course, the question of where ideas come from is the most difficult of all. Some people like to say they get ideas when they're in the shower. That's always a very entertaining answer, but I think it's much deeper than that. It goes back to your upbringing, your education, and so forth." He does say, however, that the idea for The Very Hungry Caterpillar came when he whimsically began punching holes in some paper, which suggested to him a bookworm at work. His editor later suggested he change the bookworm to a caterpillar, and the rest is history.

Carle was unhappy to be in Germany when his immigrant parents brought him back there as a child. He hated his new school and wanted to go back to America. He said: "When it became apparent that we would not return, I decided that I would become a bridge builder. I would build a bridge from Germany to America and take my beloved German grandmother by the hand across the wide ocean."

Before he became a freelance illustrator and began working on children's books, Carle worked as a graphic designer for the New York Times and as art director of an ad agency.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

A caterpillar hatches out of his egg and is very hungry. On his first day, he eats through one piece of food; on his second, two, and so on. Little holes cut in the pages allow toddlers to wiggle their fingers through the food, just like the caterpillar. Vivid and colorful illustrations and ingenious layered pages help preschoolers learn the days of the week, how to count, and how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. This picture book is considered a must for every toddler's library.

Publishers Weekly

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar comes the first-ever pop-up edition of this book. When the familiar, tiny caterpillar pops out of his egg, a dial lets readers help him chug across Carle's earthy color palette. Next, the caterpillar eats his way through a week's worth of pop-up fruit, as well as a full-page display of sweet and savory treats, (resulting in a stomach-ache), before his eventual transition into a butterfly. The pop-ups, particularly a half-cylinder tree trunk that sprouts from the center of the spread and a large accordionlike cocoon, are well executed and engaging. While the prominent use of white space lends a sparser feel than in the picture book, the shimmering wings of the pop-up butterfly dazzle on the final spread. Ages 3-up. (Mar.)

Horn Book

. . . there are moments of brilliance . . . this edition has much to offer . . .

Children's Literature - Eleanor Heldrich

In April of 2009, this book reached number three on the New York Times Best Seller List, which is quite an achievement for a pop-up book, and an expensive one! This edition of a book first published in 1969 and popular with children and their parents ever since, is 11 ½" by 8 ½" and 23" wide when it is fully opened! It begins with a pop-up an of an 8" green leaf with a small white egg lying in the middle. The second page has a wheel to turn that makes a new little green caterpillar move across the page, under a "warm sun," to start looking for something to eat. On the third double-page spread, fifteen large assorted fruits stand up, all of them with holes made by the caterpillar. The next page sends up pickles, cheese, sausages and pie, cake, ice cream, watermelon, and candy, all with signs of nibbling. "That night he had a stomach ache" but the next day he "ate through one nice green leaf and felt much better." A pull tab moves the caterpillar slowly down the stem of the leaf. Turn the page and there are two large flaps opening outward on opposite sides of the spread. One reveals that the caterpillar has grown quite large and the other opens to show a large brown cocoon, shaped like a Quonset hut, that he has built around himself and where he stays "inside for more than two weeks." Then, finally, on the last page, he emerges to become a magnificent 18" long glittering, multi-colored butterfly! All of the delights of the original story are preserved. It is just much, much bigger and it pops up. Reviewer: Eleanor Heldrich

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

One Sunday a very hungry caterpillar hatched. He eats his way through a variety of foods that are boldly and colorfully illustrated. The story progresses with the caterpillar spinning a cocoon and waking up into a butterfly, illustrating one of nature's common but lovely marvels.