Eric Carle

Hello! My name is Eric Carle. I am an artist who loves to make books for children. My story begins in a city called Syracuse, in New York, where I was born on June 25th, 1929. My parents were from Germany, and when I was six years old, in 1935, we moved back there to a city called Stuttgart. I missed my home in America, but I found joy in nature. My father would take me on long walks, showing me the secret homes of spiders, birds, and foxes. He taught me to look closely at the world, and I fell in love with all the colors and shapes I saw.

Growing up in Germany was difficult. World War II began, and it was a scary time. But even then, art was my escape. At school, I had a wonderful art teacher named Herr Kraus. He saw that I loved to draw and paint. One day, around 1942, he secretly invited me to his home. He showed me paintings by famous modern artists whose work was forbidden at the time. The colors were so bright and bold! It was like a secret world of art, and it made me promise myself that I would become an artist one day. After the war ended, I studied art at a special school called the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart.

I always dreamed of returning to America. In 1952, I finally did. I arrived in New York City with a portfolio of my art and only forty dollars in my pocket! It was a new beginning. I soon found a job as a graphic designer for a famous newspaper, The New York Times. I even served in the U.S. Army for a while. After that, I worked as an art director for an advertising company, creating pictures for ads. I enjoyed my work, but I didn't know that my biggest adventure was still to come.

One day, an author named Bill Martin Jr. saw an advertisement I had made featuring a bright red lobster. He liked it so much that he asked me to illustrate a children's book he had written. That book became Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and it was published in 1967. I had so much fun making the pictures for it! I decided I wanted to create my own books. I remembered a story I once made up about a bookworm. I changed the bookworm into a little green caterpillar, and in 1969, The Very Hungry Caterpillar was born! I created the pictures using a special technique called collage, where I painted tissue papers and then cut and glued them to make my art. I even added little holes in the pages for children to poke their fingers through.

After my little caterpillar became so famous, I went on to write and illustrate more than 70 books for children. My wife, Barbara, and I wanted a special place to share the magic of picture books, so in 2002, we opened The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Massachusetts. It’s a place where art from books all over the world can be celebrated. I lived to be 91 years old, and my life was filled with color and joy. I hope that when you read my books, you feel a little bit of that joy and remember to always look closely at the wonderful, colorful world around you.