Sally's Children's Book 7/8

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

By Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) is a narrative that tells the story of a caterpillar that emerges from an egg and spends an entire week eating all kinds of food on each day of the week. This includes food like watermelon, strawberries, sausages, a lollipop, and a piece of pie. By the end of the week the caterpillar is very full and has a bellyache from all of the food he ate. He eats a leaf to relieve his indigestion and builds a cocoon where he sleeps for two weeks. The story ends with the caterpillar emerging from his cocoon as a beautiful butterfly.
 
This is a wonderful, interactive text for young children as it allows them to be engaged and involved in the reading process. The structure of the book is quite unique as throughout the week where the caterpillar eats all of the food, each day is a different sized page that acts as a small flap over the next page. The food which is depicted in the illustrations is also quite unique as each item contains a small hole which is meant to resemble where the caterpillar ‘ate through’ the food. This is a great feature of the book as it is fun, interactive and unique. I think is a key element as to why this book is a classic and a favourite with both children and teachers.

 

The illustrations in this text are bright, eye catching and have been created using a collage effect. These illustrations accompany the text beautifully. The simplistic format of the illustrations throughout the book also help to make the pictures guide the reader through the story, as many of the pages just contain an illustration of the key element from the text on a stark white background. For example the section of the book that focuses on the food the caterpillar ate only has the items of food on the page. This format forces the reader to focus on the key point of the text, which prevents them from becoming distracted by a page filled with illustrations. This is particularly important for young children who have trouble focusing and comprehending stories, as the book guides the reader through the key points throughout both the text and the illustrations.

This text is a fantastic teacher resource and model text which could be adapted for many uses within the classroom. This could include using the book to aid young students in learning and remember the days of the week by creating and interactive ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ calendar for the classroom. Teachers could also use this text with older students in order to develop their narrative writing skills as well as explore various animal life cycles.