The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Hey, Story Seekers!

Today's main character has a problem.

He's hungry.

Then he eats.

Still hungry.

Eats some more.

Still hungry.

By Saturday, this caterpillar has abandoned all reasonable snack planning and appears to be eating his way through somebody's birthday party.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, written and illustrated by Eric Carle, first appeared in 1969. More than half a century later, kids are still sticking their fingers through those little holes in the pages and watching one extremely committed caterpillar eat lunch.

And breakfast.

And dinner.

And possibly the table.

Readit has studied Saturday's menu and would like to know where a caterpillar gets salami.

Excellent question.

No idea.

Book Breakdown

We begin quietly.

An egg rests on a leaf beneath the moon.

Then Sunday arrives, the sun comes up, and out pops a tiny caterpillar.

He's hungry.

That's pretty much his schedule for the next week.

On Monday, he eats through one apple.

Tuesday, two pears.

Wednesday, three plums.

Thursday, four strawberries.

Friday, five oranges.

You can see the machine Eric Carle is building.

Days.

Numbers.

Foods.

Repetition.

And actual holes in the pages showing where our hero munched his way through.

Then Saturday happens.

Apparently the caterpillar has discovered catering.

Chocolate cake. Ice cream. Pickle. Cheese. Salami. A lollipop. Cherry pie. Sausage. A cupcake. Watermelon.

Sir.

You're a caterpillar.

The result is exactly what you'd expect after a menu like that.

Stomachache.

On Sunday he eats through one nice green leaf and feels better. He's also not little anymore.

He's big.

He builds himself a cocoon, stays inside, and eventually comes out a butterfly.

That's a whole life cycle tucked inside a counting book tucked inside a food book tucked inside one of the smartest physical designs in children's publishing.

Because Carle doesn't merely tell children the caterpillar ate through the food.

The book has holes.

Kids can touch the evidence.

The page sizes change as the caterpillar works through the week, too, so the object in your hands becomes part of the story. You're not simply looking at illustrations of one apple, two pears, three plums.

You're handling the sequence.

And then there are Carle's pictures.

Those colors don't whisper.

The caterpillar's green body, red head, the bright fruit, the white page, and the enormous final butterfly are all built from Carle's painted-paper collage. You can see color variation and brush texture inside the shapes instead of one smooth flat fill.

The food stays simple enough to identify instantly, which matters, because children are being invited to count it.

Then Saturday arrives and everything gets gloriously crowded.

For teachers and librarians: Lexile AD460L · Fountas & Pinnell J · ages 2 to 5, up to kindergarten · 32 pages. First published June 3, 1969.

Jungle Jimmy's Journal

Here's my favorite thing about this book, and it isn't in the book.

It started with a hole punch.

Carle was punching holes through a stack of paper, looked at them, and thought of a bookworm. The story he wrote was called A Week with Willi the Worm.

His editor, Ann Beneduce, saw what it could be but not what it was. Her objection was simple. She didn't find a worm appealing.

So she said: let's try a caterpillar.

And that one swap handed Carle the ending. A worm stays a worm. A caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

The whole book turns on that.

Which tells you something about how the thing is built. It looks like a simple counting story, but there is a lot running at once.

You've got counting.

Days of the week.

Food names.

Prediction.

Repetition.

A transformation.

Cause and effect, especially when Saturday's buffet fights back.

And none of it feels like somebody wheeled a lesson plan into storytime.

That's the trick.

A kid isn't sitting there thinking, "Excellent. I shall now reinforce my sequential counting skills."

They want to poke the holes.

They want to name the fruit.

They want to know what comes next.

And they want to see how much this little guy can possibly eat.

From a read-aloud standpoint, I'd slow down and let children do some of the work. Don't race through the fruit.

Monday?

One apple.

Tuesday?

Let them count.

By the time you reach five oranges you've established a pattern. Then Saturday blows it up with the world's strangest caterpillar buffet.

That's a page to linger on.

I'd also leave room for the physical book. Those die-cut holes aren't decoration. Little fingers are going to find them.

Let them.

The transformation at the end lands because Carle keeps the beginning so small. Tiny egg. Tiny caterpillar. Increasing food. Bigger caterpillar.

Then the butterfly opens across the page.

That's visual payoff.

One thing I'd be careful about afterward. I wouldn't turn Saturday into a lecture about bad food. The caterpillar overeats and gets a stomachache. That's what the story gives us.

That's enough.

The book has survived since 1969 without anybody needing to turn the cupcake into a villain.

Leave the cupcake alone.

Readit's Review

Saturday is the best page.

Obviously.

He eats EVERYTHING.

I was okay with the cake.

Ice cream, yes.

Pickle is a weird choice after ice cream.

Then cheese.

Then salami.

Then a lollipop.

This caterpillar has no plan.

Also, I like putting my finger in the holes.

You can see exactly where he ate.

Except the holes are very neat.

If a caterpillar really ate through my sandwich, I don't think it would make a perfect circle.

I like guessing the numbers because you know there's going to be one more every day.

And then he gets huge.

I knew he was going to become a butterfly because I know what caterpillars do, but the butterfly is still cool.

I would not eat the green leaf after Saturday.

I would probably just lie down.

What Others Think

This is one of those books where the reader sample gets ridiculous. Goodreads shows 4.35 out of 5 from 558,384 ratings, with more than 12,300 written reviews.

At that scale the reviews stop being evaluations and start being memories. Adults recall it from their own childhoods. Parents and teachers talk about the counting, the colors, the foods, the days of the week, and the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The holes come up constantly, because children don't only listen to this one. They handle it.

My favorite review on the whole page is four sentences from a reader named Chris:

"I actually gave this book 5 stars, but the very hungry caterpillar ate one of them. Also, did anyone else get a defective book? My version has a bunch of holes in it."

It's a joke, obviously. But it's a joke that only works because the holes are the thing everybody remembers, which is exactly the point.

Not every adult is charmed. There's a whole subgenre of grown-up reviews poking at the caterpillar's character development, the plot's predictability, and the biological accuracy of the cocoon. Those are people having fun with a board book, and honestly, fair enough.

Because here's what's actually true about it.

This isn't a classic people keep buying because everybody agrees you're supposed to own it.

The thing still works.

A two-year-old can count the fruit.

An older preschooler can predict the sequence.

Everybody can poke the holes.

And Saturday remains Saturday.

Belly Laugh Scale

2 out of 5: Giggle Territory

This isn't really a comedy book, and I'm not going to pretend it is to be nice about a classic.

There's fun in the escalation, especially when the caterpillar goes from respectable fruit consumption to cake-pickle-salami-cupcake madness. Kids laugh at the sheer amount. Some laugh at the stomachache. Most enjoy shouting out the food.

But the pleasures here are participation, anticipation, color, counting, touching, and transformation.

Not belly laughs.

So it's a 2.

A happy 2.

Possibly with a side of watermelon.

Final Explorer Verdict

I'd recommend The Very Hungry Caterpillar most strongly for ages 2 to 5, which is exactly where the publisher puts it.

It's especially good for toddlers and preschoolers who like touching a book while they're listening, children learning to count, kids beginning to understand days and sequences, and classrooms getting into caterpillars and butterflies.

But don't let all those teachable things fool you into treating it like a worksheet with a cover.

The book works because Carle made the learning part of the game.

Count the fruit.

Touch the holes.

Predict tomorrow.

Watch the caterpillar grow.

Then turn the page and get the butterfly.

Simple.

Smart.

Still working after all these years.

All because an editor looked at a story about a worm and said: let's try a caterpillar.

Keep exploring, Story Seekers!

Jungle Jimmy & Readit