the very Hungry Caterpillar

the very Hungry Caterpillar
Eric Carle , 1969
Book cover of the German first version
Verlag Gerhard Stalling , Oldenburg Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

The Very Hungry Caterpillar ( English title The Very Hungry Caterpillar ) is a picture book of the US -Kinderbuchautors and - illustrator Eric Carle , the first time in 1969 in the publishing house Gerhard Stalling in Oldenburg (Oldb) appeared. After the bankruptcy of Stalling-Verlag, Gerstenberg-Verlag bought the rights to the children's book. It has been translated into 64 languages; more than 50 million copies were sold (as of 2019).

content

The book tells the story of a caterpillar that hatches from an egg and eats its way through a lot of food for a week. At the end of the week, it is fat and round, pupates and turns into a butterfly .

The pages have holes through the images, some of which through multiple pages throughout punched , in order to illustrate how the caterpillar eats therethrough by the Food.

The story begins with an egg from which a caterpillar hatches, which eats anything to get bigger. A day is shown on each page of the book:

1. On Monday she ate her way through an apple , but she was still not full.
2. On Tuesday she ate her way through two pears , but she was still not full.
3. On Wednesday she ate her way through three plums , but she was still not full.
4. ...

She eats more every day; on Saturday she eats various human foods and feels bad afterwards. On Sunday morning she only eats a green leaf and is much better there. Then it doesn't eat anything anymore, but pupates and hatches as a butterfly after two weeks.

reception

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, published March 20, 1969, wasn't Carle's first book, but it brought him the breakthrough and enabled him to quit his work as a commercial artist . It is extremely popular worldwide and, according to the Gerstenberg publishing house (later publisher of the German-language version), has sold over 50 million copies. The punch holes are characteristic of the book design. The width of the book pages, which increased with the number of fruits, was a novelty on the publication date .

On the pedagogical suitability of Carle's picture books, including the "Insect Trilogy", to which, in addition to The Very Hungry Caterpillar , The Very Busy Spider ( The little spider spins and is silent , 1984) and The Very Quiet Cricket ( The little cricket sings her song , 1990) has been pointed out several times.

In 1999, then-future US President George W. Bush declared the Very Hungry Caterpillar his favorite book and said it had influenced him as he grew up. When the book appeared in 1969, Bush was already 23 years old.

expenditure

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar (German version), Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3-7979-2181-0 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar (German version), Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, ISBN 978-3-7979-2181-9 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar (German-English edition), Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, ISBN 3-8067-5055-6 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - My coloring book. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, ISBN 3-8067-5121-8 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar (cardboard picture book and wooden toys ). Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, ISBN 3-8067-5060-2 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar ( pop-up book ). Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, ISBN 978-3-8369-5223-1 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - My Finger Puppet Book. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, ISBN 978-3-8369-5345-0 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - My Bathtub Book. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, ISBN 978-3-8369-5354-2 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Buggy Book. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2012, ISBN 978-3-8369-5447-1 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - My Little Playbook. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2013, ISBN 978-3-8369-5761-8 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - My Feeling Book. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-8369-5769-4 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - My Little Leporello. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-8369-5803-5 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - German edition in Braille. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2016, ISBN 978-3-8369-5147-0 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - German edition in Braille and in black letters . Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2017, ISBN 978-3-8369-5972-8 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - We're celebrating 50 years of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. - German anniversary edition. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2019, ISBN 978-3-8369-6000-7 .
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Thank you. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2019, ISBN 978-3-8369-6001-4 .

literature

• Viktor Christen (Ed.): An artist for children: Eric Carle. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 1989, ISBN 3-8067-4999-X (anniversary edition on the occasion of the 60th birthday of Eric Carle and the 20th birthday of his very hungry caterpillar. Festschrift, the autobiography of Eric Carle translated by Sabine Hindelang).

Web links

• Readings by Eric Carle. Eric Carle reads from his picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar . In: die-kleine-raupe-nimmersatt.de. Gerstenberg Verlag (Videos)
• The great career of the “Very Hungry Caterpillar”. In: ndr.de . March 19, 2019 (with audio: Jens Krause : "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", 1:15 min., Series: The "60 Second Time Machine")
• Ute Wegmann : 50 years ago. The children's book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” appears. In: Deutschlandfunk . March 20, 2019 (audio; 5:00 min.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Regina Jerichow: Cradle of the Very Hungry Caterpillar . Nordwest-Zeitung , Oldenburg June 20, 2019, p. 16 .
2. ↑ The great career of the "Very Hungry Caterpillar". In: ndr.de , March 19, 2019, accessed June 26, 2019.
3. ↑ Detailed view of children's book. In: gerstenberg-verlag.de. June 4, 2019, accessed June 24, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Annette Kuhn: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the Great Hunger. In: welt.de . March 20, 2009, accessed March 11, 2015 . 
5. ↑ In the meantime, more insect stories starting with The Very ... have been added, and in a biological sense spiders are not insects.
6. ^ Emer O'Sullivan: Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature . Scarecrow Press, November 22, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8108-7496-1 , p. 60.
7. ^ Bernice E. Cullinan, Diane Goetz Person: The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature . A&C Black, 2005, ISBN 0-8264-1778-7 , p. 147.
8. ^ Carol M. Butzow, John W. Butzow: Science Through Children's Literature: An Integrated Approach . Libraries Unlimited, 2000, ISBN 1-56308-651-4 , p. 57.
9. ↑ Isabelle Rupprecht: “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” turns 40 - very hungry. In: sueddeutsche.de . May 17, 2010, accessed March 11, 2015 .