by Maria Malia

Created on: March 25, 2009   Last Updated: April 04, 2009

George W. Bush's favorite children's book? Bush has declared it is "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. Now, to be clear, the book he named as "his favorite children's book" was NOT "his favorite book as a child," since Eric Carle's book was not published until 1969 when Bush was a twenty-something Yale graduate. This book may have been brought to his attention by his wife, Laura, who is a former children's librarian, or perhaps it was a favorite bedtime book he read to his own children. It is known that during his political career he read "Caterpillar" to school children on many occasions. He was not reading it during the 911 catastrophe, however.

Happy 40th birthday "Caterpillar!" "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" was only the second book Eric Carle wrote as the author AND illustrator. This prolific writer and artist went on to create or be involved with almost seventy more titles. His first commercial success came as the illustrator to Bill Martin Jr.'s children's picture book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" in 1967. Coincidentally, his last endeavor, to date, is another collaboration with Bill Martin, Jr. entitled "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?" (2007). "Caterpillar" continues today as a very commercial success, as evidenced by a search of the online Eric Carle <a href="http://www.carlemuseum.org/Shop/Happy_Birthday _Caterpillar/Book" class="embLink" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Museum</a>s site.

Almost every elementary school in America owns a copy of "Caterpillar." There is hardly an elementary teacher to be found who, as part of his or her unit on butterflies and metamorphosis, has not integrated this book into his/her lesson plan. Even Carle's use of the word cocoon instead of chrysalis can successfully be explained in scientific terms and, as Carle has explained in interviews, also as poetic license. He said as a child, his father would tell him to come out of his cocoon. Carle just did not think telling him to come out of his chrysalis had the same ring to it.

Carle's preferred art medium is collage. Collage is a French word meaning "to glue." Therefore, collage is an art form where pieces of paper are pasted to form an image. Eric Carle makes his own hand-painted tissue papers to create the colorful and memorable illustrations in his books. Again, Eric Carle's influence can be seen, at one time or another, in every primary and elementary art class in America today.

Caterpillar's three week adventure, from birth to butterfly, has been a favorite story of hundreds of thousands of children throughout the past forty years, and no doubt, will continue to be a favorite of hundreds of thousands of children for the next forty years.

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