Eric Carle die-cut pages, foldouts, and other innovative uses of page space." In a 2012 survey of "School Library Journal" readers, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" was voted the number two children's picture book behind "Where the Wild Things Are". Eric Carle Eric Carle (born June 25, 1929) is an American designer, illustrator, and writer of children's books. He is most noted for "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", a picture book that has been translated into more than 65 languages and sold more than 46 million copies, which is equivalent to 1.7 copies sold every minute since it was published. Since it was published
Eric Carle the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. Eric's father was drafted into the German army at the beginning of World War II (1939) and taken prisoner by the Soviet forces when Germany capitulated early in 1945 (the end of the war). He returned home late in 1947 weighing 85 pounds. "When he came back, he was a broken man," Carle told "The Guardian" years later. He was a "dead man, psychologically, physically devastated." Eric had been sent to the small town of Schwenningen to escape the bombings of Stuttgart. When he was 15 the German government conscripted boys of