A small but not insignificant caterpillar eats various items for some days in a row and then becomes “a beautiful butterfly.” Could it be that all creatures have this ability, to start small and become something infinitely beautiful? I think so and clearly Carle did too. Why is this book so inspiring for children and adults alike? It’s a simple concept, really. Let’s take “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” Carle’s classic and best-known work, first published in 1969. His writing followed suit it felt effortless and it gave children and adults something sublime to munch on. I’ll start with Carle, whose aesthetic as an illustrator is effortless and pure play. But it was only as an adult when I first aspired to be a children’s book author that I began to study their work. I had many Carle books as a child and remember seeing Ehlert’s brightly colored books in one of my Milwaukee, Wisconsin, classrooms growing up. Eric Carle, the creator of 70 picture books for children and adults passed away Sunday at 91, and Lois Ehlert, known most notably for illustrating “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,” died Tuesday at 86. The world has lost two giants of children’s literature.
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