The Very Hungry Caterpillar Essay

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Eric Carle wrote and illustrated what is a well-known collectible and classic children’s book called The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This bestseller book has won many notable awards for its rich illustrations and storyline. The illustrations in this picture book capture its audience by the use of unique literary devices to display an equal balance of entertainment and concepts.
The story describes how a caterpillar prepares its’ journey to transform into a beautiful butterfly. While analyzing the book, there is without a doubt an artistic style of impressionist art used. Impressionistic art depicts natural appearances of objects by rendering fleeting visual impressions with an emphasis of light (Brown pg. 59). Carle exhibits these qualities with an extensive use of white space and little detail shown to suggest a fleeting image. Shown on each page are the mix of media collages with bright colors and broad brushstrokes. For example, at the end of the caterpillars’ life cycle. He turned into a vivid butterfly that took over two pages due to the perspective of its spectacular size. The yellow, purple, blue, green, and red colors make up the rich texture of …show more content…

One, in particular, is the illustration where the caterpillar consumes its way through each food item. Here, Carle made sure to leave white space for the reader to know what they should focus on, clearly. Easily, young readers will relate to the story and be able to identify the different nourishments eaten by the caterpillar because the foods are very well known. Carle drew his audience attention with an adorable caterpillar that eats everything, including apples and oranges in various perspectives from a close-up view to a far away view. The holes in the foods left by the caterpillar draw little fingers into them add a kid-appealing dimension to this book making it more

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