Classic by Eric Carle: 50 years "The Little Caterpillar Nimmersatt" | Books | '
It is Sunday morning. The little Eric walks with the big Erich through the adjacent forests of Feuerbach near Stuttgart. Erich turns over stones, knocks on tree barks and shows Eric the many small, hidden creatures bustling in their micro-universe. The father explains his son the ways of life of ants, beetles and worms – then he puts them carefully under the stone or under the tree bark.
"I believe in my books that I honor my father by writing about small creatures, and in a way, I'm catching up with the happy times," writes Illustrator Eric Carle on his website. His distinctive children's books with his own collage technique have been translated into more than 60 languages.
Cult book: "The little caterpillar Nimmersatt"
The "Caterpillar Nimmersatt" is enthroned above the work of around 70 illustrated books. Published for the first time 50 years ago as a picture book, it tells the story of a caterpillar with insatiable hunger. She pampers apples, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges side by side, then goes on to chocolate cake, ice cream waffles, sour cucumber, cheese, sausage and lollipops. Of course, this ends in abdominal pain – but also in a transformation into a beautiful butterfly. "It's the story of hope, like the Caterpillar, a small and even ugly beast, you'll be big and beautiful, your wings, your talent, will unfold and fly out into the future," Eric Carle explains the unexpected, timeless success of his story in an interview for the German weekly magazine "Stern".
A happy ending that was not granted to him and his father. The Carles emigrated in the 1920s looking for work and a better life in the US. In 1929 son Eric was born in Syracuse, New York. But when he was six, the family moved back to the Baden-Württemberg Feuerbach. A momentous decision: When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the father was drafted immediately and became a Russian prisoner of war. The son was transported with his school class to the Westwall and had to dig there trenches. When Eric's once affectionate father returned from imprisonment after eight years, he was a skinny wreck. The close bond between father and son was broken forever. "While he had lost all his will to live, I was discovering a new world," recalls Eric Carle in an article for the magazine "Focus".
Eric Carle (2009)
Study in post-war Germany
After a successful study at the Academy of Arts in Stuttgart, Carle closed the circle of his biography and returned to the USA in 1952. "I was not even 23 years old, had a nice workbook and $ 40 in my pocket," recalls the illustrator. His courage paid off: at first he worked for many years in an advertising agency. "In the mid-1960s, Bill Martin Jr. saw a display of a red lobster I had designed and asked me, 'Brown Bear, who do you see?' What an inspirational book! The big leaves, bright colors and bold brushes of my former school came to mind, and this opportunity changed my life, "explains Eric Carle. He realized that he was not enough to illustrate and so he began to write stories.
Ideas in boxes
"I started making sketchbooks about my ideas and stored them in a small carton When I illustrated a historical cookbook, the editor heard from my box of ideas and asked me to see them Zoo 'filed, "said Carle. Also in his successful book "The little caterpillar Nimmersatt", which was created in 1969, helped him an editor on the jumps. When he told her about his story about a worm eating holes through the pages, editor Ann Beneduce advised him to think of another creature. "How about a caterpillar?", She asked him and he responded enthusiastically: "Butterfly!" So the idea of the transformation of the very hungry caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly was born. A book with a simple language and impressive pictures was the result. To this day, Eric Carle, celebrating his 90th birthday on June 25, is best known for this small children's book found in children's rooms around the world.
From May 18 to September 8, 2019, the exhibition "Eric Carles picture books: 50 years 'The Little Caterpillar Nimmersatt'" can be seen at the Museum Wilhelm Busch, the German Museum for Caricature and Drawing Art in Hanover.
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