children

He doesn’t look a day over twenty-five

Kim and I must have different calendars, because mine doesn’t have anything this week other than St. Patrick’s Day, but she recently informed me that this Friday, March 20, is the 40th Anniversary of the publication of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  I checked around online and, sure enough, Friday is “Very Hungry Caterpillar Day,” with celebrations all over the world.  Check here for special events in your area.

Kim frequently runs special literary dates by me to see if I want to write anything, and I’m ashamed to say that many important authors’ birthdays have come and gone with my not having a thing to say about them, mostly because I read their books back in college and can’t remember them well enough to do them justice.  But when she said “Eric Carle,” my ears perked up.   (They do that sometimes.)

If you read my earlier post about reading out loud to kids, you’ll know that I didn’t enjoy it as much as most parents.  I did read picture books to my kids when they were babies and toddlers, but wading through most of them felt like punishment for transgressions I hadn’t known I’d committed.  Not Eric Carle, though.  I loved reading his books out loud.  Maybe it’s the paper cut-out artwork that looks almost three-dimensional and is never cloyingly cute but transcends children’s art to become something that appeals to all ages.  Maybe it was the simple repetitive storylines and words that meant my kids could recite most of it with me, so our voices could blend.  Maybe it was the little extras–the surprises–that Carle always puts in his picture book, from the textured web of the Very Busy Spider, to the actually cut-out holes the Very Hungry Caterpillar chews through, to–my personal favorite–the soft and gentle “chirp, chirp” of the Very Quiet Cricket at the end of that book. Read the rest of this entry »