THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle !45th Anniversary!

For forty-five years now, this delightful, colorful, teaching book has been available to us!  Young and old!  Mr. Carle artfully created the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.  We watch an egg become a caterpillar, eating its way through a variety of foods each day of the week until it is time to build its cocoon.  The pages are only a partial piece of paper in the beginning with a hole punched in them.  As the book progresses, the pages increase in size along with the caterpillar, still with a hole punched in each page.   The finale is the transformation of this cute and well-know caterpillar into a gorgeous butterfly.

The colors are bright; the pictures are bold.  The art is very Mr. Carle.  He has a most certain style and we celebrate 45 years of just this one book…one book of over seventy that Eric Carle has illustrated, authoring many himself.   Collage is his favorite method for creating the characters and the backgrounds in all of his books.

This book, originally published in 1969, has been translated into more than 62 languages now and has sold over 41 million copies.  It comes in every type of book.  There are puppets, caterpillar toys.  There is a book with a handle and the caterpillar.  My, oh my!  Choose the way you want this fun book!

Reading Level:  3 – 5 Years

Author/Illustrator:

Eric Carle was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929.  In 1935, his parents returned to their home of Germany where Mr. Carle was educated.  He attended a prestigious art school in Stuttgart, Germany, Akademie der bilenden Künste.  He dreamed of returning to America and, in 1952, he did.  He worked for the promotion department of The New York Times and then became the art director of an advertising agency.

Bill Martin, Jr. saw an ad done by Eric Carle and called to see if he would illustrate a children’s book he had written.  This collaboration is known to the world today as “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”  His world changed.  He began writing and illustrating his own children’s books.

Awards:

•  American Institute of Graphic Arts Award in 1970
•  Selection du Grand Prix des Treize in France in 1972
•  Nakamori Reader’s Prize in Japan in 1975
•  The New York Times one of  “Ten Best Picture Books of the Year” in 1969
•  National Education Association’s #1 of its “Teachers’ Top 100 Books for Children”
•  and many more

“Eric Carle has two grown-up children, a son and a daughter.  He divides his time between the Florida Keys and the hills of North Carolina.”  **

He and his wife, Bobbi, dreamed of and built The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA.  They “were interested in developing enthusiasts for the art of picture books and in encouraging the habit of museum going in our younger visitors. Children’s picture book art is the introduction to art for young people, and we wanted to show the highest examples of that art to demonstrate the beauty, the seriousness and the fun of it. We wanted to create a museum that exhibits the work of national and international picture book artists.”  **  PLUS…his museum site has activities and games, resources, and so much more.

You can also find him at his own website and blog here – http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

If you love to read Eric Carle’s books with your children and want activities to go along with them, I suggest doing a search for “activities Eric Carle” (or a few other similar words).  There is a plethora of creative activities to go with each of his books amassed on the internet for your perusal and use.

Book Information:

ISBN-13: 9780399208539

Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

Publication date: 10/28/1981

Pages: 32

Product dimensions: 8.30(w) x 11.90(h) x 0.50(d)

 

**  information from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

 

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