"Just a book"?

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by the late Eric Carle, is an extraordinary literary success story by any standards you care to name. Just 224 words long, it's become one of the world's most beloved books, translated into more than 30 different languages. One copy has been bought every minute since it was first published, back in 1969 - and at the current rate is even higher, at one copy every 15 seconds. Famously, George W. Bush named it his favourite book from childhood, even though he was 23 when it appeared.

Why, then, have Dubya and millions of children and their parents fallen in love with it? It's a question that Kate Taylor considered in a 2004 Radio 4 documentary to mark the book's 35th birthday, and in an accompanying Guardian article. She suggested (among other things) the striking visual appeal of Carle's colourful collage style; the story's use of "prediction, pattern and picture cues", vital to those learning to read; the clever device of having holes punched through the pages ("an unprecedented gimmick that turned the book into a toy"); and the foods that the caterpillar devours, all of which I recall seeming strange and exotic as a child.

Carle himself admitted to being initially bemused at the book's success: "For many years, my publisher and editor and I did not know the reason for The Very Hungry Caterpillar being so popular." He gradually came to see it as "a book of hope". Ultimately, though, it was "bread and butter to me": "It paid my rent. I truly didn't think of lasting success or anything like that. I mean, it's just a book." As Taylor noted, however, "in this opinion he is very much in the minority".