abstract:The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a children's picture book designed, illustrated and written by Eric Carle, first published by the World Publishing Company in 1969, later published by Penguin Putnam.100 Best Books for Children, Anita Silvey, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004, ISBN 978-0-618-27889-3 It features a caterpillar who eats its way through a wide variety of foodstuffs before pupating and emerging as a butterfly.
Thomas Hardy, Dickens and Tolstoy all figure in the list, alongside books for very young children like The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson, and Eric Carle's early years counting book: TheVeryHungryCaterpillar.
Bethan Marshall, a senior lecturer in English education at King's College London told the magazine the literary merit of picture books was often underestimated, comparing TheVeryHungryCaterpillar favourably with another literary hit, Yann Martel's Life of Pi.