MIPOTW: The Story

I’m either late on last week’s Most Interesting Phrase of the Week or early on this week’s.  We’ll see which one as the week progresses.  Either way, I was so pleased to read this USA Today interview with Eric Carle about the 40th anniversary of his classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We have the board book version, and it’s a favorite at bedtime and lots of other times.  Mr. Carle gives a great account of how the book was originally conceived and how he finally settled on the main character.  He’s just published a “pop-up” version of the book to commemorate the anniversary, and I can’t wait to get it.  Its interactive quality reminded him of “computers” which prompted this quote:

“I know things change,” he says. “I like to hold books and touch them. But in the future, who knows? When they invented papyrus, someone probably said, ‘Storytelling was so good. Why did we have to go and put it on papyrus?’ But one thing doesn’t change. It’s the story that counts.”