Carle’s deep love and close observation of nature inspired the storyline. The idea for the format of the book came from playing around with a hole punch and thinking of a worm eating its way through a book an editor suggested a caterpillar would be a more attractive creature for children. From its eloquent opening of a tiny egg alone on a leaf in the moonlight, the story succinctly captures metamorphosis as the caterpillar determinedly eats its way through every child’s dream food before making a cocoon then emerging as a beautiful butterfly. Stylistically, he drew on his graphic design training and advertising experience to create bold images that made their points simply. For it, he worked in collage, overlaying layers of tissue paper, so creating images in near transparency as well as in deep and multi-layered colours. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) was Carle’s second solo book. With its adaptability to different formats, The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold more than 55m copies around the world.
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