Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is a museum devoted to the art of the picture book and especially the children's book. It is a member of Museums10 and is adjacent to the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The Carle was founded by Eric and Barbara Carle, and designed by Juster Pope Frazier Architects. Together with his wife Barbara (1938-2015), Eric Carle, the author and illustrator of more than 70 books, including the 1969 classic "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", founded the museum. It was the first full-scale museum in
The Very Hungry Caterpillar cocoon around himself. There, inside he sleeps in it for 2 weeks. Later, the caterpillar emerges as a handsome butterfly with large, gorgeous, multi-coloured wings. In a sense the book was inspired by a hole punch: "One day I was punching holes with a hole puncher into a stack of paper, and I thought of a bookworm and so I created a story called "A Week with Willi the Worm"." Carle was familiar with "differently shaped pages" from books that he read as a child in Germany. "A Week with Willi the Worm" featured a bookworm named Willi. But Carle's