Grow Up! (The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
Date:	05/05/04 (184 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple and effective, Beautifully illustrated, Educational

Disadvantages: Can be expensive, even for smaller versions, due to the pictures and designer holes in pages, May get annoying!

~~~ All quotes taken from The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, published by Penguin Books, 1986. Buy it, it's good ~~~


There are a number of colourful books that are staples of every junior school or playgroup, and ?The Very Hungry Caterpillar? by children?s writer and artist Eric Carle is one of the most famous children?s books internationally. It is incredibly simple, quite educational and, most of all, very fun for children.


STYLE


Carle wrote and illustrated this book, using very short and understandable sentences and phrases, and a mixture of painting and tissue paper collages for the pictures. This distinctive style sets the book apart and introduces children to an art form at a very early age, as they will appreciate the pictures and possible be inspired to make their own in a similar style.

The book is even more memorable for the simple level of interactivity it provides the child with, in the form of hole-punched circles over several pages. These fall over the pictures of food that the caterpillar gnaws its insatiable way through.


THE STORY


Designed for very young children who are learning to read, or are being read to by an adult, the Very Hungry Caterpillar is the short tale of a caterpillar?s life cycle, presented in an interesting way.


?In the light of the
moon a little egg
lay on a leaf.?


The story begins with the genesis of the caterpillar, reaffirming children?s knowledge of birth and life. This first double page spread features a leaf, the egg and a friendly-looking moon in the night sky.


?One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and ? pop!
? out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.?


This seco
nd double page features a large, grinning Sun, watching over the caterpillar, that is drawn very tiny. While older readers might at first mistake this for perspective, more innocent children will have no doubt as to the very simple meaning, and can watch the creature grow as the book progresses.


?He started to look
for some food.?


This is where the fun begins, as the next four pages have been hole-punched lengthways, illustrating the caterpillar?s eating pattern. The right hand side of the first double-page spread features five ?flaps? of incomplete pages, each getting bigger as more food is shown:


?On Monday
he ate through
one apple.
But he was still
hungry.?

?On Tuesday
he ate through
two pears,
but he was still
hungry.?

?On Wednesday
he ate through
three plums,
but he was still
hungry.?

?On Thursday
he ate through
four strawberries,
but he was still
hungry.?

?On Friday
he ate through
five oranges,
but he was still
hungry.?


This repetition and the visual aids will have children enjoying, and telling aloud the story, even if they cannot read. If Teletubbies taught parents anything, it?s that their children love repetition; Old McDonald?s farm springs to mind.

The educational value of this section is also quite impressive, as it can help children to learn their numbers one to five, how to spell the numbers one to five, the days of the ?school week,? and the differences between types of fruit.


?On Saturday
he ate through
one piece of
chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon.? r>
?That night he had a stomachache!?


This long-winded list of food covers the double page with illustrations, and is a chance for some humour after the repetition of the previous section. The strange list of very different food types keeps it interesting for the child, and the line about the stomach ache will likely be their first experience of humour through confounded expectations, as it was not what they expected. Even I can appreciate that one.


?The next day was Sunday again.
The caterpillar ate through
One nice green leaf,
And after that he felt
Much better.?


Completing the week cycle, perhaps this could be seen as a message that children should eat their greens. I doubt any children would be stupid enough to try and eat leaves in the same manner.


?Now he wasn?t hungry any more ? and he wasn?t a little caterpillar any more.
He was a big, fat caterpillar.?


Growth and change are highlighted here, especially with the drawing of the overweight minibeast. Use of the phrase ?big, fat? marks this out as a book targeted towards the very young.


?He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself. He stayed inside for
more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and...


Limiting the educational value to caterpillars here, the illustration makes it easier for the child to visualise a chrysalis more than if they were simply told about them. Two weeks must seem like a much longer length of time for a child.


?he was a beautiful butterfly!?


The book ends with the caterpillar having achieved beauty and happiness, leaving all children satisfied. But they may well demand that the reader start from the beginning again.


THE AUTHOR <
br>

Eric Carle is an American who grew up in Germany and was inspired to illustrate for children?s books, and proceeded to create his own highly successful works. Other famous examples of Carle?s work include ?The Very Busy Spider? and ?Have You Seen My Cat?,? the focus on the natural world stemming from his own childhood interests and memories.


VERDICT


This is an incredibly popular child?s book with good reason; it looks great, has a very interesting style, and the plot is very straightforward and familiar. The educational value should not be dismissed, nor should the fact that children will want to read this in their spare time due to the pictures, the simplicity and the humour. Children may even feel proud of their achievements when they can recite the story simply by looking at the pictures, or by noticing small details such as the picture of the caterpillar on the reverse side of each food ?flap.? Even the young need self-esteem.

I?m also sure that any parents who remember the book from when they were children will get a great deal of pleasure from reading it to their own children, safe in the knowledge that they are also helping their education and development.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Similar books, from my own experience:

Not Now Bernard / There?s No Such Thing as Dragons ? both of these books use repetition to get a point across, and teach valuable lessons about paying attention and being friendly and open-minded.

Don?t Forget the Bacon ? similar humour to this book, this also uses some fairly silly and bizarre objects that a child will be familiar with, and has a great ending.


If anyone reading this has other suggestions, I would be happy to add them to my review.