Eric Carle

Eric Carle (born June 25, 1929) is an American designer, illustrator, and writer of children's books. He is most famous for The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a picture book with few words that has been translated into more than 62 languages and sold more than 52 million copies. Since it was published in 1969 he has illustrated more than 70 books, most of which he also wrote, and more than 162 million copies of his books have been sold around the world. He won the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his career contribution to American children's literature in 2003.

For his contribution as a children's illustrator Carle was U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2010.

Early life

Eric Carle was born in 1929 to Erich and Johanna 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 (ABK-Stuttgart in German Wikipedia). 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 "sick man, psychologically, physically devastated."