Eric Carle would have celebrated his 92nd birthday two weeks
from today, but he passed away two weeks ago. He was born in Syracuse, New
York. When he was six, his German mother, homesick for das Vaterland, moved the
family to Stuttgart. It was an unfortunate time to live in Germany, but it may
also have been a hard time to be German in New York. Eric was drafted into the
German army in 1939 (My math must be wrong. Was he ten?) and taken prisoner by Soviet
forces in 1947. When he finally came home, he weighed 85 pounds. Bill Martin
Jr. saw Eric’s art and asked him to collaborate on a picture book. Their Brown
Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? became a best seller. The Very Hungry
Caterpillar, published two years later, was voted second best loved
children’s book, after Where the Wild Things Are. What I love about his
books is they can be “read” by pre-readers.
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