Link Copied.It happens pretty much the same way every time. The day after I’ve partaken in some sort of weekend or holiday eating-and-drinking binge—i.e., the Monday after the Super Bowl, the fifth of July, the first week of January after the entire Thanksgiving-through-New Year’s season officially comes to a close—I engage in the same detoxifying, repenting ritual: the consumption of a fresh, nutrient-rich salad. Somehow, in my mind, the more vividly green the leaves in the salad, the more purifying the ritual will feel, and with that first crunch on a crisp piece of greenery, I hear a tiny voice in my head, murmuring, “ The next day was Sunday again. The caterpillar ate through one nice green leaf, and after that he felt much better.” A pivotal line from a formative piece of literature that I, like many thousands of other now-adults, first encountered in childhood: The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar—in which a caterpillar hatches out of an egg on a Sunday, proceeds to eat vibrantly colored fruits it finds in escalating quantities from Monday to Friday, goes on a junk-food-eating rampage on Saturday, eats a nice green leaf on Sunday, and then nestles into a cocoon for two weeks and emerges a beautiful butterfly—was released 50 years ago, on March 20, 1969. In the years since, it has sold almost 50 million copies around the world, in more than 62 languages; today, according to the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House, a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar is sold somewhere in the world every 30 seconds.

And its enduring appeal, according to librarians and children’s-literature experts, can be attributed to its effortless fusion of story and educational concepts, its striking visual style, and the timelessness of both its aesthetic and its content. Courtesy of penguin young readersMichelle Martin is the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services at the University of Washington’s Information School—meaning that every day, she trains future teachers and school librarians in how to teach reading and literacy. She also publishes reviews of children’s books. In Martin’s field, if you don’t have a good grasp of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, “you are children’s-book illiterate,” she says with a laugh. Part of why both kids and parents love The Very Hungry Caterpillar is because it’s an educational book that doesn’t feel like a capital-E Educational book. Traditionally, children’s literature is a didactic genre: “It teaches something,” Martin says, “but the best children’s books teach without kids knowing that they’re learning something.” In The Very Hungry Caterpillar, she adds, “you learn the days of the week.

You learn colors. You learn the fruits. You learn junk-food names. In the end, you learn a little bit about nutrition, too: If you eat a whole bunch of junk food, you’re not going to feel that great.” Yet, crucially, none of the valuable information being presented ever feels “in your face,” Martin says. Kim Reynolds, a professor of children’s literature at Newcastle University in England, notes that Caterpillar’s lessons about nutrition are especially valuable for kids. “The fact that the process indulges not just hunger but the joys of food—taste, texture, colors, scents are all evoked by the range of food the caterpillar eats—intensifies the delights,” she writes in an email.

Awards. Winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Digital Award. Google Play's Best of 2015. Kidscreen's Best Preschool Game App Care for your very own Very Hungry. What it is and what you do with it: interactive play app. Thanks to Augmented Reality technology you can now play with the Very Hungry Caterpillar on the floor of your room of in your garden. Feed Caterpillar with apples, plums or pears. Give it toys to play: foam bubbles, a wind-up ladybug, a ball and a set of paints.

The book also presents opportunities for kids to feel playfully superior to the caterpillar when it overindulges and gets a tummy ache. (Perhaps only later in life do readers learn to feel sorrowful, indigestive empathy for the gluttonous caterpillar.).

But The Very Hungry Caterpillar doesn’t just stop at the colors, numbers, healthy eating, and days of the week, Martin points out: It also offers a nifty lesson in elementary animal biology. “You do get a little bit of a lesson as the caterpillar goes into the cocoon and then comes out as a butterfly,” Martin says, and adds with a laugh, “How many 2-year-olds are conversant about metamorphosis?” Certainly more than might be otherwise, thanks to The Very Hungry Caterpillar.Reynolds believes that the narrative about transformation can also be understood as an age-appropriate allegory about growing up. “At some level the story is recapitulating the journey from childhood to adulthood and presenting it as an entirely positive transformation,” she said. “You start off small and hungry (for healthy babies, food is the first source of bliss and connection with the carer), and you grow up to become gorgeous.” (This is Carle’s understanding of the story, too: “Like the caterpillar, children will grow up and spread their wings,” he.). Another aspect of The Very Hungry Caterpillar that has added to its perpetual popularity is its vivid, subtly sophisticated art. “The art in that book is just fantastic,” Martin says, and unusual elements such as holes in the pages where the caterpillar has eaten through a food make it a particularly memorable reading experience for small children. Plus, as Martin points out, much of the art in Caterpillar and the rest of Eric Carle’s oeuvre—including in works such as The Very Busy Spider and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?—uses bright colors and formal techniques that are familiar to small children, such as finger painting and overlapping paper cutouts.

“Kids think, ‘Oh, I could do that!’” Martin says. The sun in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, she points out, even has a smiley face. That said, the childlike themes in Carle’s illustrations belie the complexity and invention of his visual style—something that was unusual in children’s books when Caterpillar was first published in 1969. “I do think it’s intentional on Carle’s part to make the art look like that, because it draws the child in,” Martin says, but she adds that creating the imagery for Carle’s children’s books was in fact an intricate and complicated process, and Carle was also producing art that showed in galleries at the time. “It used to be that illustration was kind of a second-class thing, if you were an artist,” Martin says. In that way, Carle was ahead of his time. “There weren’t nearly as many dedicated career illustrators in the 1960s as now.

Today illustrators will push the boundaries more, and create art that’s gallery-worthy, but it’s for a picture book.” Carle, she adds, has his own gallery in Massachusetts—the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the book. Courtesy of Penguin Young ReadersIn some ways, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is typical of its time. In the late 1960s, “there was quite a lot of psychological training for teachers about everything from children’s fears to color perception; there was much encouragement for young children to explore the world (safely),” Reynolds said. “Bright colors, everyday objects, uncluttered design, and a joyful, optimistic approach to life” were in vogue in children’s literature at the time, and they’re also splashed all over the pages of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Still, while many children’s books of the era engaged with the real world and with nature, Martin says, few did so as whimsically as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Especially in the United States, she points out, much of the children’s literature of the 1960s had a distinctly Civil Rights–era, activist bent to it. (Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day, the first book about an African American child to win the Randolph Caldecott Medal, was published in 1963.) Plenty of classic children’s books from 1969, in other words, immediately announce their from-1969-ness in a way that Martin thinks The Very Hungry Caterpillar does not.“ The Very Hungry Caterpillar has aged very well.

There’s nothing in there to tie it to 1969, really,” she says.For that reason, Martin says she fully expects The Very Hungry Caterpillar to still be a wildly popular baby gift and classroom staple another 50 years from now. “All those things are still around, that the caterpillar encounters,” she says.

“And kids are always going to need to learn the days of the week.”We want to hear what you think about this article. To the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Awards. Winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Digital Award. Google Play’s Best of 2015. Kidscreen’s Best Preschool Game AppCare for your very own Very Hungry Caterpillar, a virtual pet based on the best-selling picture book!Eric Carle’s much-loved character, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has won the hearts of millions of children around the world for more than 45 years.

Now, for the first time, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is brought to life in a stunning educational 3D interactive app.My Very Hungry Caterpillar will captivate you as he crawls across the screen! Have fun playing and learning together. Feed him, draw with him, pick him up, or take a peek into his colorful toy box. Help him explore nature - pick fruits from trees, play in the pond and grow beautiful flowers.You'll soon fall in love with your own adorable Very Hungry Caterpillar as you enjoy a range of fun activities together. Hatch him from an egg, drag tasty fruits from a nearby tree, then watch as he eats them! And when My Very Hungry Caterpillar gets sleepy, just tuck him into his bed.Each time you wake him up, it’s time for an exciting new adventure: push him on a swing, sail on a pond with bobbing Rubber Ducks, and grow flowers and fruit in a magical 3D garden.The more you play, the more surprises you'll find including new activities, new fruit, and new toys unlocked over time.

Chase a bouncing ball, pop floating bubbles and watch out for the wind-up Grouchy Ladybug!Day by day, My Very Hungry Caterpillar grows bigger and bigger, until he changes into a beautiful butterfly. By purchasing this item, you are transacting with Google Payments and agreeing to the Google Payments. AFinitDataCallback(key: 'ds:17', isError: false, hash: '24', data:functionreturn 'gp:AOqpTOF4ByFQBawtvbZdtlY4Ow3udf7a-DZdGeUI6yixgLeLRNeDu5iFqCnlcdT80j79aKiXZswcSGAVr-DMQ','Priscilla Elizondo',null,2,null,null,null,'Support answered me and I'm waiting for the reimbursement because the full version is still not working. I would love to buy it again when it is working properly. My son loves it, so I paid 4.99 for the full version. And he loved it even more. But then just stopped working the full version, it's like I never paid for it, I went and checked by card statement and I went through and we played for some time, I'm not sure why stopped working.

Stronghold hd youtube. I try restored purchase and it didn't work',399000000,8,'StoryToys','Updated reply 17.4.20: Hi there. We hope our support team managed to resolve the issue for you.

If so would you consider revising your review? NnOriginal: Hello, did your problem get resolved? If not, we are here to help you!

Please do let us know at support@touchpress.com.' ,476000000,null,'0','Priscilla Elizondo',null,null,2,null,null,null,'observer28',null,2,null,null,null,'5 year own (3 kindles of different sizes), One samsung tablet, one samsung phone.I have 2 emails and have been charged more than once.and can the developers of the game please check on it.Update- Since i have 2 emails.the charges applies one on google and one on amazon.explained by the developer.overcharges were refunded and response was great.Thanks! Please introduce some other innovative learning games along with caterpillar adding bees, flowers, etc.so the boredom is curbed',855000000,27,'StoryToys','So sorry you're having trouble restoring your purchase.

Please email us at support@touchpress.com with the Google Play order reference number and we'll help you with th',499000000,null,'4','keen observer28',null,null,2,null,null,null,'The Bear',null,2,null,null,null,'like this game. The downside to this is that it seems too short and that the price to getting the full game does not seem worth purchasing. I did not purchase it, however it does not seem like enough extra gameplay to get. I would suggest lowering the 'full game' price and it would seem more worth it. Or adding even more to the full game would be worth it.

Hope that makes sense.' ,660000000,28,null,null,'3','Garbage The Bear',null,null,2,null,null,null,'Sabrieva',null,2,null,null,null,'BUY THE FULL VERSION, IT WILL LOCK AGAIN AND WILL ASK YOU TO BUY IT AGAIN and doesn't give you an option to restore your purchase.If this happens contact google play for a refund. I purchased the unlocked version and paid u00a3 4.99 today,but no unlocking appeared.My child was very disappointed.Unlocked for a bit and locked again,so it couldn't play the full version at all. Also,you will not be able to play on more then one device with the same account and will lock again despite you have paid for it. Don't spend your money for this game,it's like a scam,you pay for nothing in return as soon after you have paid it's taken back from you!'

,4000000,101,'StoryToys','Hi, can you please contact us at support@touchpress.com and we will gladly help you in resolving the issue.' ,679000000,null,'3','Feri Sabrieva',null,null,2,null,null,null,'Khoo',null,2,null,null,null,'down I have paid and was not able to launch the game in full despite rebooting and re installing the app.

I have not gotten any response as well despite email sent to your customer service. It's not exactly cheap to pay for the game in full, but worst paying and got charge for something that did not work',481000000,80,'StoryToys','Hi Joyce. We replied to your email. If you didn't receive it please check your spam folder. ,166000000,null,'6','Joyce Khoo',null,null,2,null,null,null,'Bratjanscak',null,2,null,null,null,'app has been very good. My 4 yr old loved it.

Bought the in app purchases and had no problem with it. But now, when he wants to play it, it starts to lag heaps bad and he gets annoyed with it. I've uninstalled and re-installed it but it still does it',230000000,24,'StoryToys','Hi Bella, can you please contact us at support@touchpress.com and we will gladly help you in resolving the issue.' ,226000000,null,'0','Bella Bratjanscak',null,null,2,null,null,null,'Mum',null,2,null,null,null,'Restore purchase not working. On all devices. I hope you the developers can resolve this soon.

Odd that it's happening for so many of your customers. Hopefully it's not a block you've put on previous purchases to try and force re-purchase at the higher price.' ,427000000,43,'StoryToys','Hi there.We're sorry you're having problems restoring your purchases.

We are aware of an issue affecting some people in this way and are working on a fix. If you email us at support@touchpress.com we'll do all we can to help you.'

,771000000,null,'5','Celtic Mum',null,null,2,null,null,null,'https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/AOh14Gj5AUdxvC5XuHXJ5utJardLdSiO5Y9Br2vUbyVMbQ'.