The Very Hungry Caterpillar

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. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar uses distinctive collage illustrations, 'eaten' holes in the pages and simple text with educational themes – counting, the days of the week, types of food, and a butterfly's life stages. 

The book has been translated into at least 40 languages and it has been used by preschool teachers, librarians, and parents, as a teaching aid, with activities developed which use the book.

 

In 2009, IEric Carle was invited to create a doodle for the Google homepage. It was online on March 20th that year, the day selected to mark the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.