"In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf." So begins one of the most beloved picture books of all times, right up there with The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. (If you'd like to see a list of 100+ picture book classics, go to: http://readkiddoread.ning.com/profiles/blogs/great-classic-illustrated.) Carle's singular style of translucent painted tissue-paper collage illustrations is instantly recognizable, even to young children, and his hungry caterpillar even made it onto a U.S. stamp several years back.

A tiny and very hungry green and yellow caterpillar with a little red face pops out of his egg and starts looking for food. In pages of graduated size, with die-cut holes in each food, he eats his way through the week, starting on Monday with one apple, and moving through two pears, three plums, four strawberries, and five oranges, but he's still hungry. On Saturday, he eats a glorious array of junk food (that will probably make your children ask for sweets), but on Sunday, he simplifies, eating through a nice green leaf. The now big, fat caterpillar builds a big brown cocoon around himself, and two weeks later, lifts off from the exhilarating final double page, as a multicolored butterfly. At which point, your listeners, snuggled close to you, will sigh with satisfaction.

Eric Carle's very first book is still adored and still in print (Bill Martin Jr's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See), but his most famous one is this one, his third book, still drawing the crowds, a full forty years later. You can find it in a board book or even a pop-up version, as well as the original large picture book format. Follow up the caterpillar's journey with a look at primary concepts and other problem-afflicted animals in The Very Busy Spider, The Very Clumsy Click Beetle, and The Very Quiet Cricket.

Now there's even a wonderful museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, www.picturebookart.org, that showcases his pictures and the work of many other groundbreaking children's book illustrators. Until August, 2009, there's an exhibit, "80/40: Celebrating the Birthdays of Eric Carle and The Very Hungry Caterpillar," and Carle himself will visit for the day on August 23, 2009. Go to the website to take a virtual tour of the facility, or take your kids there when you're in the area. They hold storytimes, lectures, and even art classes. And their website is filled with things to see and do.

THEMES: BUTTERFLIES. CATERPILLARS. DAYS OF THE WEEK. FOOD. INSECTS. METAMORPHOSIS.