Eric Carle "The New York Times". Later he became the art director of an advertising agency. Educator and author Bill Martin, Jr. first noticed the illustration of a red lobster Carle had created for an advertisement and asked him to collaborate on a picture book. "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" was published by Henry Holt & Co. in 1967 and became a best-seller. This began Carle's true career; soon he was writing and illustrating his own stories. His first books as both author and illustrator were " to the Zoo" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969).
Eric Carle Eric Carle the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal (now called the Children's Literature Legacy Award), a prize for writers or illustrators of children's books published in the U.S. who have made lasting contributions to the field. For his contribution as a children's illustrator Carle was U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2010. Eric Carle was born in 1929 to Johanna and Erich Carle in Syracuse, New York. When he was six years old, his mother, homesick for Germany, led the family back to Stuttgart. He was educated there and graduated from the local art school,