Today Eric Carle celebrates his 89th birthday! He is best-known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar (click this link to hear him read it aloud), but he was written and/or illustrated over 70 picture books for children.
Carle's trademark collage artwork gives his stories not only a vibrant, colorful, textured appearance, it creates lovable characters for his readers to connect to and enjoy.
As I was looking through my collection and the public library collection (who else loves being able to reserve books online and pick them up without having to search?!?), I noticed that he's written a few that begin with The Very. I opened the cover of The Very Lonely Firefly and read this lovely note from Mr. Carle to his young readers:
Dear Friends,
After The Very Hungry Caterpillar had been published I wanted to create a VERY quartet. With this book I have achieved that goal.
1. THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR is about hope. You, like the little caterpillar, will grow up, unfold your wings, and fly off into the future.
2. THE VERY BUSY SPIDER is about work. We need to work and finish our tasks despite the many diversions.
3. THE VERY QUIET CRICKET is about love. Crickets and people alike search for and hope to find a suitable mate.
4. THE VERY LONELY FIREFLY is about belonging. We all want to belong to a group, a family, our own fellow creatures.
I hope you like my firefly.
Sincerely,
Eric Carle
I'll admit to tearing up. To me, it is an incredible gift when someone who touches so many young lives through story reaches out in a very personal way to reinforce the purpose of his work.
If you've never read one of his books, or if you haven't made your way through his body of work, start now.
Dear Friends,
After The Very Hungry Caterpillar had been published I wanted to create a VERY quartet. With this book I have achieved that goal.
1. THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR is about hope. You, like the little caterpillar, will grow up, unfold your wings, and fly off into the future.
2. THE VERY BUSY SPIDER is about work. We need to work and finish our tasks despite the many diversions.
3. THE VERY QUIET CRICKET is about love. Crickets and people alike search for and hope to find a suitable mate.
4. THE VERY LONELY FIREFLY is about belonging. We all want to belong to a group, a family, our own fellow creatures.
I hope you like my firefly.
Sincerely,
Eric Carle
I'll admit to tearing up. To me, it is an incredible gift when someone who touches so many young lives through story reaches out in a very personal way to reinforce the purpose of his work.
If you've never read one of his books, or if you haven't made your way through his body of work, start now.
If you aren't able to get to a library or bookstore, Online Stories has produced quite a few of his books.
Once you have reveled in a bit of his work, there are some great online sources for learning more about him.
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts has a wonderful website.
Mermaid Theatre Nova Scotia produced this video of several of his stories.
A short Q&A session with Eric Carle.
Have a VERY good time getting to know the wonderful world of Eric Carle!
* He has a 5th VERY book - The Very Clumsy Click Beetle.
Eric Carle is one of my absolute favorites!!
ReplyDelete-tinybodiesbighearts