What it is:
@homedad hosts a meme called Fiction Fridays which is all about showcasing the children's books you are liking, reading or enduring.
My book this week is not something we're currently reading but a personal and family favourite:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Eric Carle, 1969 (Puffin)
In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.
Everyone loves this book.
I have very clear memories of it from kindergarten: delight every time I found it available in the bookshelf, the gorgeous colours, the die-cut pages, poking my little fingers through the holes.
It was one of the first books I bought to read to my own children, and our soft-cover edition is much-thumbed and dog-eared.
Recently my sister bought them the hard-cover edition so we have that too.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of those rare perfect books. It is beautiful, a good story, and very clever. The blurb on the back describes it as "deceptively simple" and it is. In addition to a lovely story, these are the things covered simply, beautifully and perfectly in this book:
- nature: where caterpillars come from, what they eat
- night and day
- days of the week
- passage of time
- counting
- types of fruit
- colours and shapes
- interactivity
- nutrition
- hunger, eating too much, feeling full, how to feel better
- temperance
- metamorphosis
Here are some of those beautiful pages
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| end papers |
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| butterfly wing |
Do you have a favourite picture book? What makes it special?
If you would like to play Fiction Fridays, click on the badge below to see how:
It really is just a perfect picture book, great choice :-)
ReplyDeleteAgree - thanks so much for visiting :)
DeleteThe very first book I ever borrowed when I started primary school. I remember loving all the holes in the food that the HP ate through and marvelling at how groovy the illustrations were. Still are in fact.
ReplyDeleteMe too - love the beautiful illustrations in all Eric Carle books
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