Illustrator Eric Carle

Even as an adult huMom still finds children books & picture book art pawsitively irresistible & dog gone magical. Often the stories & pawtacular images invite or share with the reader places, people, animals or emotions they may have never visited or only exist in their imagination & on the pages in which they absorb them from. These impressions can help shape beliefs & inspirations. Pawspectives change & lessons can be learned at any age. HuMom believes one is never too old to enjoy children’s books.

Sadly, this week we learned that Illustrator & children’s book author Eric Carle passed away at his summer studio in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was 91 years of age & continued to draw right up until this month. Although he has published more than 70 works, selling more than 170 million copies of titles such as ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See’ (1967), ‘ The Very Busy Spider’ (1984), & ‘Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me’ (1986) in many different languages, many know of him from his classic children’s picture book, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ (1969) which sold 55 million copies & is still a top selling children’s book.

The book tells the story of a ravenous character who literally eats its way through the story before spinning itself a coon & transforming into a beautifully colored butterfly. It all began with a hole puncher. Carle had punched holes into a stack of paper & his first thought was of a bookwork but his editor was not sold on the worm & suggested a caterpillar to which Carle said, “Butterfly!” & from there a book of hope was created. It is the story of a seemingly plain little caterpillar that would grow up & eventually unfold into it’s own beautiful talents & fly off into the world. Here is a link to a touching YouTube video of Eric Carle dogscusing ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s 50th Birthday‘.