Book Review: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle

Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is a simple but endearing book cleverly designed with everlasting appeal. The book is around for 40 years but it still conveys a fresh and vibrant essence as it traces the life of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" from an egg on a leaf - "In the light of the moon a little egg lay on the leaf" - until it turns to a colorful butterfly.

Eating different foods on different week days such as an apple on Monday, two pears on Tuesday, three plums on Wednesday, four strawberries on Thursday, five oranges on Friday and a bunch of different foods on Saturday, from lollipops and cupcakes to ice-cream, salami and watermelon, Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" gets bigger and fatter until it, inevitably, gets a stomach ache.

Baby caterpillar munches through the pages in a humorous and creative way. As he caterpillar eats, he leaves little holes behind in the various foods. The holes are fine for young children to poke their fingers in and play for hours with the thick pages and the holes. This kid-appealing dimension makes the book intriguing for toddlers, who can follow the caterpillar's appetite and metamorphosis from a newborn maggot into a wonderful, two-page, purple, blue, red, green and yellow-wing butterfly. Holes are all lined-up with the pages of food so that it looks like the caterpillar has eaten through the whole book.

Illustrations are perfect creating a real feeling of the pictures in the book. Full of colorful, tissue-paper made pictures that actually introduce the counting game, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is broadly used by kindergarten teachers as well as pre-school instructors. Using bright colors and broad brushstrokes, illustrator Eric Carle introduces toddlers to an artistic canvas where the love for colors, the counting game and the caterpillar's lifecycle mingle in an effortlessly simple manner.

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is an intriguing book that communicates in an interactive and educational way with pre-school kids. Providing quite a lot of information about the life-cycle of a caterpillar, it teaches children how the caterpillar starts small, grows larger, builds a cocoon and emerges.

The book addresses also the importance of healthy eating. From Monday to Friday the caterpillar consumes fruits, but on Saturday he eats anything unhealthy and ends up with a stomach ache. Many children consider that this happens "because he eats food that is bad for him."

Children may also build up their memory skills when trying to memorize orderly the food that the caterpillar ate. They also learn to count and to identify the colors as the week progresses and the caterpillar eats different fruits.

The most interesting part of the caterpillar's story is that, instead of entering a chrysalis as it would be expected, it enters a cocoon. After several parents' inquiries about this allegedly irrational fact, Carle explained that there are caterpillars that actually become butterflies in a cocoon. Therefore, the book provides also scientific information about the caterpillar species and how they develop into butterflies.

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is one of the most well-liked children's books. Written in a simple, yet creative manner, it has sold over 12 million copies around the world and has been translated into 47 different languages since 1969 that it was originally published. To my view, it is a straightforward, colorful and didactic book for young children offering a rich food vocabulary and introducing toddlers to the sequence of the week days.

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