The Very Hungry Caterpillar

What would a picture book aimed at very young children need to encompass in order to achieve an enduring success? Should it be educational? Should it be colourful and cleverly designed? Should it lend itself well to reading aloud as well as appealing to young independent readers? Eric Carle's 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' combines all these elements, and in 2009 celebrates its fortieth anniversary.

The book opens with a tiny white egg seen in the moonlight on a green leaf. The moon is huge in comparison and bears a smiley face. Turning the page, the sun, also smiling, has come up and a little caterpillar has hatched out of the egg. It is Monday, and he eats through one apple: this is a very narrow page that actually has a hole in it, and on turning over the caterpillar is seen emerging from the hole in the apple. As the week goes on, the caterpillar increases the amount he eats. On Tuesday it's two pears, Wednesday three plums, Thursday four strawberries and Friday five oranges. The pages gradually get wider too, and this means that on Monday's page we can actually see part of the pages of the next four days and anticipate what is coming. Each picture of a fruit actually has a hole in it, and every time we turn over the caterpillar is there, coming out of a hole he has eaten his way through. At the end of each day, he is still hungry.

Turning the page to Saturday, there is a complete surprise. The caterpillar is no longer restricting his diet to fruit: he eats his way through an array of different foods, illustrated over a double page. There's an ice cream, a pickle, a slice of cheese, a lollipop and a piece of cake, to name just a few. Not surprisingly, the caterpillar has a stomach ache by the end of Saturday. On Sunday, he is much more sensible and just eats through one green leaf. By this time he is of course much bigger, and he is ready to build a cocoon around himself. There he stays for two weeks until finally, on the last double page, a beautiful butterfly emerges.

The educational possibilities of this picture book are several. It is obviously a wonderful way of teaching young children about the life cycle of the butterfly; there may be an element of fantasy in the caterpillar's weird and wonderful diet, but the progression from egg to caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly comes across very clearly. There is also a simple time scale as we follow the caterpillar over the course of a week and are told that the cocoon stage lasts two weeks.

Days of the week could also easily be learned from 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', and the fact that Monday to Friday are each linked to a different type of fruit as well as a different number, for example Monday with one apple and Tuesday with two pears, should create a progression that could help a child to remember the order of the days. Saturday will of course stand out with its huge variety of different foods, followed by a quiet, restful Sunday. Simple counting is of course included here, with a total of ten types of food on the Saturday.

'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' could be used as an inspiration for memory games after reading. A child could try to recall which fruit the caterpillar ate on which day, and how many pears, plums, and so on. It would also be fun to try to remember all the different kinds of food that the caterpillar ate through on Saturday; I tried this with a group of three-and-a-half to four-year-old children, and they excelled themselves by recalling all except the pickle.

The font is quite large and clear, and is presented on a white background throughout the book. This makes for clarity and should encourage children of around five to seven to have a go at reading it themselves. The repetition of phrases such as 'he was still hungry' will help them along, but there is also a good variety of vocabulary to challenge a more confident reader.

The illustrations are bold, colourful and definitely child friendly. The caterpillar is a cheerful-looking creature, whilst the butterfly appears at once vivid and delicate. The frontispiece actually shows rows and rows of little circles as if they have come from the holes in the food, whereas at the end of the story there is a double-page collage of coloured shapes with holes punched out, reminding us of the way the caterpillar ate through the food.

'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' is skilfully designed, attractive and charming; it can teach a young child a great deal, but in the most enjoyable way. Despite the plethora of imaginative picture books that are available at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Eric Carle's book is able to hold its own forty years after publication. It has so much to offer that its popularity is likely to remain for many more years.