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Cover of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar": Who am I?
What I want?
Photo: Gerstenberg / picture alliance / dpa
Read over and over again
The copy of the "Little Caterpillar" on our bookshelf is appropriately read. The spine of the book chipped, the corners deformed despite the strong cardboard, the cover threadbare and stained. This is what a book looks like that has been read over and over again, on rainy Sundays and at 30 degrees on the beach, as a bedtime story and good morning reading. Even with parents who like to read aloud, the repetitive nature of this matter, when the children want the same book over and over again, can lead to states of despair. But "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is different. Shorter of course, just 17 sentences long, that's where the genius lies. And more grateful because it elicits immediate reactions from the child: The joyful shuddering on page two at the little word »Knack«,when the caterpillar hatches from its egg on a warm Sunday morning. The excited participation of the types of fruit that the caterpillar eats. The impatient flipping of sticky children's hands to the last page when the butterfly finally shows itself. This process of understanding the world by reading - it is inscribed in our copy. It will always have a place on our bookshelf.
Oliver Kaever
New standards in children's book aesthetics
The plot of Eric Carle's eternal children's bestseller - the caterpillar eats its way around the world as it pleases - never appealed to me. A narrative too clearly exercised process, the butterfly point too smooth at the end. But isn't the story also secondary? Carle's carefully composed, large-scale collage technique is actually what is spectacular. It gives all his characters a lot of warmth because you can literally see the thoughts that have flowed into them. In an interview with the Guardian, Carle once named works by Expressionists such as Matisse, Klee and Picasso as formative memories that an art teacher had secretly shown him to him during his youth in Nazi Germany. Carle's own style was always of a perfect clarity.In addition to illustrator greats such as Leo Lionni ("Frederick"), Carle set standards for a children's book aesthetic that was particularly effective from reduction after jobs in advertising and as a designer for the "New York Times" at the end of the sixties. You can still trace Carle's great artistic influence in the work of younger illustrators like Chris Haughton ("Pssst! We have a plan!"). Carle has shared his illustrations on Twitter over and over again in recent years. My recommendation: lose yourself today for ten minutes in this magical feed.«) Explore Carle's great artistic influence. Carle has shared his illustrations on Twitter over and over again in recent years. My recommendation: lose yourself today for ten minutes in this magical feed.«) Explore Carle's great artistic influence. Carle has shared his illustrations on Twitter over and over again in recent years. My recommendation: lose yourself today for ten minutes in this magical feed.
Eva Thöne
Eric, my grandpa and me
I am reviewing children's books today. Who knows - maybe everything would have turned out differently without this book. For me, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is not just an ingenious children's book. It's also part of my family history. My grandfather gave it to me in the summer of 1970 with the dedication: “To my sweet little Agnes! - Grandpa Lu «. He will have seen it at work and thought of me. At that time he worked as a warehouse clerk at the Gutenberg Book Guild and kept bringing books home. He would have preferred to become a teacher, but he found a way to the books anyway. To this day I am grateful to him for the gift and this dedication. The bookbinder had to remove mold from my edition, the doodles my little sister Kathrin wrote on the pages document her young talent for drawing.The caterpillar connects the whole family to this day, everyone liked to read it out loud and the sentence "... but she was still not full" is certainly not just around us. Incidentally, I liked Saturday best. Everything was delicious - except for the fruit bread.
Agnes Sunday
A little metaphor for human progress.
If there is one thing that sides cannot have, it is holes.
The sides of "The Little Caterpillar ..." have holes.
The pages are thick enough to withstand them, and these holes lead to the following pages like sensual wormholes into other dimensions.
Page by page, new puzzles unfold, waiting for insatiable penetration.
The caterpillar is first an egg under a friendly moon, then, in the warm light of the sun, suddenly in the world.
The world serves to satisfy their hunger. Hunger and curiosity about the world are identical here. After a series of fruits, so to speak caterpillar-typical foods, she eats her way through cakes, sausage, lollipops, cheese. A small metaphor for human progress in general, but also for the limits of growth and the abundance of what is available to us to consume. Only at the very last does the caterpillar attack a green leaf. It almost seems as if she is coming to her senses, to reason, to be humble. Only after this act, when the hunger is satisfied, does she experience an identity transformation. What the caterpillar was is now a cocoon. What happens in it is the greatest mystery. And yet the story ends in the metaphysical fact that a butterfly emerges from the enigmatic.Who am I? What I want? What can I hope for? And what can i be No philosopher has ever posed these last questions as elegantly as Eric Carle. Answers to this cannot be found in any book or library. We have to live a life.
Arno Frank