As the world mourns the loss of one of our favourite children’s book author and illustrators, we look back on how the book came to be.
The story follows a hungry caterpillar who munches his way through a series ofin order to reach metamorphosis and become a beautiful butterfly. Each of the tasty items the caterpillar snacks on throughout the book feature a “bite” from the caterpillar, represented by a hole punch, and it was exactly this innovative and interactive feature that made the book so difficult to produce.
On a trip to Japan, she took the book with her to show Japanese printers and totally lucked out when publisher Hiroshi Imamura took such a liking to the book that he agreed to print it. “I didn’t think a worm was terribly appealing,” she explains, adding that the book didn’t have an ending at that point either. When she pitched the idea to Carle, he completely lit up, and as a pair they developed the idea of having the caterpillar turn into a butterfly at the end. From there, it was smooth sailing and apparently Carle finished the book nearly overnight!