The Very Hungry Caterpillar
by Eric Carle · first published 1969
39% recommend58% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Beloved read-aloud for babies and toddlers: fun food pictures, little holes to poke fingers through, and a gentle intro to metamorphosis. Parents pass it down across generations and use it to ask kids questions.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
One sunny day, a caterpillar pops out of an egg. He is very hungry and begins searching for food. He eats his way through ten very sweet pages and gets a tummy ache before finally finding a good, healthy leaf, which makes him sleepy. Then something really amazing happens. But you will have to read it your self to find out what!
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What Hacker News says
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…I Read Signs (Tana Hoban; other books by her also quite good) - Go! Go! Go! Stop! (Cherise Mericle Harper) - Little Pea (Amy Krouse Rosenthal) - Trucks, My Car (and other Byron Barton books) - The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle; some other books by this author are also good) - Roadwork (Sally Sutton; also in the same vein by the illustrator Brian Lovelock: Demolition, Flight of the Honey Bee, The Rain Train). Many…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite toddler books?” ↗By the way, the very in the title isn't just an intensifier, it's a reference: The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic children's book.
on “The Hungry Caterpillar and the Ecosystem” ↗It's a toss up between Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive by David Mowaljarlai and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar for me. Readers who like Kircher might also enjoy: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=C0iGO0Hr95UC and triple check his math .. it gets pretty wonky.
on “Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters” ↗> Penguin Random House owns Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar intellectual property. The book has been on Publisher Weekly’s bestseller list every week for 19 years. This is insane. To be fair, it’s a fun book. But 19 years?!
on “No one buys books” ↗…definitely seems to be a trend of celebrities- Hollywood actors, professional athletes, politicians and political activists who publish children’s books. Usually without the memorable artfulness of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
on “Why did so many mid-century designers make children's books? (2022)” ↗The Very Hungry Caterpillar is probably the single most important kids book in my extended family. It was the first book I got as a kid due to my dad loving it, and Mum sewed me a little toy which was my favourite toy for many years.…
on “Eric Carle has died” ↗Some of the favourites in our house: Hooray for Fish The Hobyahs Don't Wake Up the Tiger Katinka's Tail All the Harry the Dog books Dumbo's African Adventure The Very Hungry Caterpillar A New House for Mouse Many of the Disney books - they can be very hit and miss but some have been quite popular, like the Dumbo book above, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Poeh, and a few others. Reading…
on “Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention” ↗Interesting. My oldest also loves all three of these books, while his younger brother loves "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". They're great books to make funny sounds with. They're also great for asking our kids questions about the stories.
on “Eric Carle has died” ↗I loved The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a kid, and now read it to my 6 month old before bed. He loves it too, smiling while playing with the little mini pages and me poking his finger into the holes as the caterpillar chomps through his…
on “Eric Carle has died” ↗I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to my toddler. It really resonates with her because of all the fun pictures of food! What strikes me about a lot of children's book is that they often talk about metamorphosis - which is a strange and…
on “Eric Carle has died” ↗Yeah but The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a good children's book. Maybe you don't have children but trust me there are plenty of bad children's books (especially now it's easy to self publish). Take a look at Penguin in Peril for example.…
on “Show HN: I “wrote” a kids book with ChatGPT and Midjourney” ↗> I rolled a 15 sided dice 15 sided die? Why didn't you also roll a 58 sided die then? > I will be reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar Great luck! I loved that book as a child. It may have been what led me to HN...
on “Extracting Hacker News Book Recommendations with the ChatGPT API” ↗…shoot me with facts like: “Did you know if you can't breathe properly...there might be something wrong with your ravioli?!” (he meant alveoli) My younger one is starting his reading journey with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. A classic from my childhood… now becoming part of theirs. And then there’s the art. The messy, hilarious, fridge-worthy “masterpieces” that adults might overlook as suspiciously sticky works of art.…
on “Show HN: Notimon Game (Obsidian Meets Pokémon RPG)” ↗Good Night Moon - 187 times The Cat In The Hat - 200 times The Very Hungry Caterpillar - 85 times But seriously, im on my third re-read of Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, In my opinion its the best book about leadership ever written.
on “Ask HN: Which books have you read more than once?” ↗…(Harper Lee) 6. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) 7. Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) 8. How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie) 9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling) 10. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle)
on “Most frequently checked-out books in the history of the New York Public Library” ↗