Synopses & Reviews
From the creator of the all-time classic VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR comes a sweetly resonant story about the power of friendship.
When a best friend moves away, it can be painful for the child who is left behind. But the spunky boy in this upbeat story makes up his mind to find his missing playmate. Young readers will cheer on the boy as he braves currents, climbs mountains, and dashes through rain before, finally, reuniting with his friend. A story alive with love and perseverance, brightened with vibrant art and Eric Carle's trademark fostering of imagination.
This deeply personal story for Eric is dedicated to his longtime wife, Bobbie, and it is their bond that inspired the book. For anyone who has ever scaled mountains to be with the one he loves, or for anyone who has simply known the love and joy of a great friendship, this book will strike a resonant chord.
This story of love and determination is illustrated with Carle's extraordinary signature artwork. For anyone who would cross rivers and scale mountains for a beloved friend, this warmhearted story will create an emotional response. Young readers will learn the value of friendship and its many challenges.” School Library Journal
Often dynamic and quite beautiful, these colorful illustrations of the river, the meadow, and so on are abstract in style and show up well from a distance. A picture-book tribute to the strength of childhood friendships.” Booklist
"The images are beautiful and evocative." Publishers Weekly
Review
Praise for
Friends:
“This story of love and determination is illustrated with Carle's extraordinary signature artwork. For anyone who would cross rivers and scale mountains for a beloved friend, this warmhearted story will create an emotional response. Young readers will learn the value of friendship and its many challenges.” —School Library Journal
“Often dynamic and quite beautiful, these colorful illustrations of the river, the meadow, and so on are abstract in style and show up well from a distance. A picture-book tribute to the strength of childhood friendships.” —Booklist
"The images are beautiful and evocative." —Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
What?s the opposite of ordinary? Eric Carle?s Opposites! Unfold the full-page flaps to explore opposites with the art of Eric Carle. Short and tall, big and little, over and under!
Synopsis
This bilingual board book with a sliding panel uses Eric Carle?s vibrant artwork to teach the names of common animals in both English and Spanish. The panel slides back and forth to reveal the name of the animal in English (?dog?) and in Spanish (?perro?). The facing page features a simple sentence about the animal in both languages.
Synopsis
Carle is one of the most beloved illustrators of children's books. This retrospective is more than just an appreciation of his art, however. The book also contains an insightful autobiography illustrated with personal photographs, an anecdotal essay by his longtime editor, a photographic essay on how Carle creates his collages, and writings by Carle and his colleagues. Still, it is the artwork in the oversize volume that seizes the imagination. More than 60 of his full-color collage pictures are handsomely reproduced and serve as a statement of Carle's impressive talent.
- Booklist
Synopsis
A brilliant new Eric Carle picture book for the artist in us all
Every child has an artist inside them, and this vibrant picture book from Eric Carle will help let it out. The artist in this book paints the world as he sees it, just like a child. There's a red crocodile, an orange elephant, a purple fox and a polka-dotted donkey. More than anything, there's imagination. Filled with some of the most magnificently colorful animals of Eric Carle's career, this tribute to the creative life celebrates the power of art.
Synopsis
THE all-time classic picture book, from generation to generation, sold somewhere in the world every 30 seconds! Have you shared it with a child or grandchild in your life?
Carle's classic tale of a voracious caterpillar who eats his way through the days of the week and then changes into a eautiful butterfly has been reissued in a sumptuous twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a shiny, silver-coated cover and wonderfully thick, durably pages.
The Horn Book
"The very hungry caterpillar literally eats his way through the pages of the bookand right into your child's heart..."
Mother's Manual
"Gorgeously illustrated, brilliantly innovative..."
The New York Times Book Review Watch a Video
Synopsis
Now one of Eric Carle's most popular books is a lift-the-flap book! The horse wants to go for a ride, the cow wants to eat some grass, and the sheep wants to run in the meadow—but where is the very busy spider? You'll have to lift the flap to find out!
Synopsis
When a very lonely firefly goes out into the night searching for other fireflies, it sees a lantern, a candle, and the eyes of a dog, cat, and owl all glowing in the darkness. It even sees a surprise celebration of light. But it is not until it discovers other fireflies that it finds exactly what it's looking for.
Read it with a flashlight in the dark or under the table--and watch those fireflies glow!
Synopsis
A small cricket hatches one warm day,' and the other insects greet him. Though the little guy wants very much to respond, nothing happens when he rubs his wings together. Finally, as night falls, he spies another cricket and attempts to greet her. And this time . . . he chirped the most beautiful sound that she had ever heard.' As usual, Carle's art is lovely and his story is simple and satisfying. But this book has something The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider didn't have: an electronic chirping mechanism activated by the turning of the last page.
-Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
Eric Carle's animals are perfect for illustrating number concepts. One: giraffe. Two: giraffe and elephant. Three: giraffe, elephant, and bear. In this book, readers count all the way up to ten as each page has a corresponding number of animals to point out. The last page features a flip book of all the numbers to count out loud. The padded cover is perfect for little hands.
Synopsis
A. B. C. D. Unfold the full-page flaps to reveal an ant, bear, camel, and duck! Eric Carles illustrated alphabet and animals make learning your ABCs as easy as . . . well, A, B, C!
Synopsis
A board book edition of the best-selling story features thermographic pages and a raised spider web children can feel for themselves, which complement the book's colorful collages and easy, rhythmic text.
-Ingram
Synopsis
Learn English and Spanish words with Eric Carle!
Parents are increasingly aware of the benefits of teaching children multiple languages, and the earlier the better! This ingeniously simple board book uses Eric Carle?s vibrant artwork to teach simple words?slide the panel to reveal the name of each color in English or in Spanish. It combines the effectiveness of flashcards with the interactivity of a novelty book!
Synopsis
This is a miniature, unjacketed hardcover edition of Eric Carle's classic story of persistence.
"A beautifully executed work for the very young that satisfies the needs of both visually handicapped and sighted children without losing its artistic integrity."
-The Horn Book, starred review.
"Both sighted and blind children will follow the action with ease . . . Visually and verbally, this is a winner."
-Booklist, starred review.
Synopsis
Fish that fly, butterflies that dance, camels that "trollop along," a tiger that has swallowed the sun--
Animals Animals!
In this commemorative volume, created especially for sharing, Eric Carle celebrates the broadest, liveliest cast of animals yet, illustrating a distinguished collection of poetry and lyrical pieces from sources as diverse as the Bible, Shakespeare, Japanese haiku, African Pygmy, Pawnee Indian, Eugene Field, Lewis Carroll, D. H. Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling, Judith Viorst, Issa, Ogden Nash, Jack Prelutsky, and X. J. Kennedy.
With brilliant, full-color illustrations that reflect the highest level of artistic excellence, Carle invites the earth's children--brothers, sisters, parents, teachers, friends, all--to glory in the sameness, the difference, and the wonder of the earth's precious animals.
Synopsis
Kids will love flipping through these chunky board books! These two mini board books are childrens first steps to reading Eric Carle books on their own. Each book shows ten images and ten easy words from one of Eric Carles classic Very books. First-time readers will love to learn these words and pictures and then find them later in the original picture books!
Synopsis
It's time to learn with everyone's favorite busy spider! What time did the horse interrupt the very busy spider? And what time did she finish her web? Kids just learning to tell time will love moving the clock hands to show what time things happened during the spider's day! The hands of the clock even have the spider and her web printed on them!
Synopsis
Eric Carle joins the Penguin Young Readers!
In this classic and heartwarming story, a very lonely firefly finally finds the friends he is seeking at the end of a tireless search for belonging. Carle's rich, collage-like art and gentle text will be comfortingly familiar to his millions of fans. An accessible Level 2 reader, The Very Lonely Firefly is one that parents and children will read over and over again.
Synopsis
View our feature celebrating the 40th anniversary of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Eric Carle’s beloved and well-known characters take on a life of their own in this new scrapbook format. It encourages kids to jump into Carle’s world by drawing and coloring in the characters that live in their own imaginations. In addition, kids can fill in the answers to questions such as “I like to draw __,” “My favorite color is__,” and “I like to collect__” in the “About Me” section.
Synopsis
The Very Busy Spider is now available as a coloring book! Perfect for both reading and coloring, this interactive picture book follows an industrious spider as she carefully spins her web. A cow, a pig, and other farm animals want her to play--but a busy spider needs to finish her work, or there'll be no dinner.
Special artwork made just for coloring and blank pages at the end for original drawings give this classic story new life. A sure-fire hit for creative children everywhere.
Synopsis
Kids will love to eat through 16 different types of food with the very hungry caterpillar! With giant stickers that are perfect for little hands, this book is the perfect choice for kids just learning their numbers. Counting has never made you hungrier!
Synopsis
The very lonely firefly is looking for a family, and kids can help him to find them! In this beautiful sticker book, Eric Carle's art comes alive as you add stickers to the story to find out what the firefly sees. It's a fantastic new look for Eric Carle, with reusable stickers and artwork from the classic Firefly story!
Synopsis
A spider, blown by the wind to a fence post near a farm yard, begins to build her web and cannot be distracted from the task at hand--not by the horse, cow, sheep, goat, or dog. But when the rooster asks if she wants to catch a pesky fly, the busy spider is able to catch it in her web immediately!
"A beautifully executed work for the very young that satisfies the needs of both visually handicapped and sighted children without losing its artistic integrity."
The Horn Book, starred review.
"Both sighted and blind children will follow the action with ease . . . Visually and verbally, this is a winner."
Booklist, starred review.
Synopsis
A small cricket hatches one warm day,' and the other insects greet him. Though the little guy wants very much to respond, nothing happens when he rubs his wings together. Finally, as night falls, he spies another cricket and attempts to greet her. And this time . . . he chirped the most beautiful sound that she had ever heard.' As usual, Carle's art is lovely and his story is simple and satisfying. But this book has something The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider didn't have: an electronic chirping mechanism activated by the turning of the last page.
-Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
A board book edition of the best-selling story features thermographic pages and a raised spider web children can feel for themselves, which complement the book's colorful collages and easy, rhythmic text.
-Ingram
About the Author
Ever since he began innovating the look and function of childrens stories in the late 1960s, Eric Carle has remained an author whose stories reliably hit the bestseller lists and remain on kids' bookshelves through generations.
While his best-known work is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has sold millions of copies the world over, he is also the creator of such classics as The Very Busy Spider, The Very Lonely Firefly, and The Very Quiet Cricket.
Mr. Carle lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. Visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts.