The Very Hungry Caterpillar's First Poems

Introduce young readers to poetry with The Very Hungry Caterpillar in this first-ever collection of original poems from the World of Eric Carle!

Caterpillar’s Wish
I made a little wish
on the first star in the sky.
I wished that I could turn into—
a big blue butterfly!

This tender collection of first poems invites young readers into the world of poetry. Featuring Eric Carle’s beloved classic character, his signature illustrative style, and twelve original poems by award-winning poet Charles Ghigna (Father Goose), this keepsake casebound board book is perfect for little ones and their families to read and enjoy together.

Charles Ghigna (Father Goose®) is an award-winning children's author and poet of more than one hundred books from Disney, Random House, Red Comet, Schiffer, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Time Inc., as well as more than five thousand poems that appear in anthologies, textbooks, syndicated newspapers, and magazines ranging from Harper's Magazine and the New Yorker to Highlights and Cricket magazines. He has served as a poet in residence at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, an instructor of creative writing at Samford University, a poetry editor of English Journal for the National Council of Teachers of English, and a nationally syndicated feature writer for Tribune Media Services. Ghigna has read his poems at the Library of Congress, the John F. Kennedy Center, the American Library in Paris, the American School in Paris, the American International Schools in the Americas, schools in Alaska, and conferences, libraries, book events, and schools throughout the US and overseas. For more information, please visit FatherGoose.com.

Eric Carle was the legendary and bestselling creator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and more than seventy other classic books for very young children. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold over sixty million copies and has been translated into more than eighty languages. Eric Carle was honored many times for his work, having received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) from the American Library Association, the NEA Foundation Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education, and many other national and international awards. In 2002, Eric Carle and his wife, Barbara, cofounded The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts. Eric Carle passed away in 2021, at the age of ninety-one.