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The Very Hungry Caterpillar

1969

  • children's fiction
  • caterpillars, fiction
  • toy and movable books
  • fiction
  • caterpillars
  • german language materials
  • italian language materials
  • specimens
  • translations into chinese
  • chinese language edition

The story

One sunny day, a caterpillar pops out of an egg. He is very hungry and begins searching for food. He eats his way through ten very sweet pages and gets a tummy ache before finally finding a good, healthy leaf, which makes him sleepy. Then something really amazing happens. But you will have to read it your self to find out what!

What it’s like

Bold, flat-colour collage in primary hues (leaf green, plum, orange, sunshine yellow) sits against crisp white pages, with tissue-paper textures that catch the eye like cut paper stacked on a table. Each spread holds a single object or a single bite-sized hole, so the eye travels page by page through a rhythm of turning, counting and turning again. The voice is spare and sing-song, almost a whisper read aloud, and the sounds are soft: a rustle at a turned page, a small pause before the sweet foods, the hush of a sleepy final scene. The mood is cheerful and gently drowsy, a warm, low-stakes calm with one small tummy-ache wobble and no violence, cruelty or fear. It suits a bedtime read, a lap-and-story session with a toddler, or a quiet Sunday morning when you want something bright and uncomplicated. Designed for very young children, for parents and carers reading aloud, and for adults who enjoy simple picture-book artistry.

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