80/40

Dear Friends,

This year I am celebrating two birthdays, my own 80th and the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. There are many events and programs happening around the world for The Very Hungry Caterpillar's 40th and there is an exhibit currently on view at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art called 80/40: Celebrating the Birthdays of Eric Carle and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. For more information and for a little preview of the exhibition, you might like to visit the Museum's web site at http://www.carlemuseum.org/Exhibitions/Current_Exhibitions

Eric Carle

My Favorite Food

Dear Friends,

I am often asked what my favorite this or that is - color, character, animal – and occasionally someone will ask – What is your favorite food? And while there are many foods I enjoy eating, I have always loved Blackforest honey since I was a child and I think I always will. Here I am enjoying it for breakfast.

Eric Carle

My Favorite Things

Dear Friends,

I was delighted to be asked to create a piece for the House of Illustration, a picture book art museum being developed in London by Quentin Blake and other friends in the UK. For the project, entitled - What Are You Like? - I was asked to list eight of my favorite things and in this way create a kind of self-portrait. The piece has been printed as a limited edition signed giclee lithograph which can be purchased by visiting the House of Illustration web site shop at http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/shop.php#prints.

While it hasn’t been my custom to plug books or products, I want to do my best to support this worthy cause. All proceeds from the sale of this print support the development of the House of Illustration.

Eric Carle

Mr. Hiroshi Imamura

Dear Friends,

It has been a great pleasure and privilege to work with my Japanese publisher Kaisei-sha over the years. Our relationship began in the late 1960's, when my editor Ann Beneduce brought with her on a trip to Japan, a copy of my yet to be published book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Because of its special features, the die-cut holes in the fruits and foods and the graduated, shortened pages - Ann had been unable to find a printer in the U.S. It was Mr. Hiroshi Imamura, then president of Kaisei-sha, who found a way to print The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Japan and who embraced the challenge it took to make this book a reality.

Now The Very Hungry Caterpillar is turning forty and while there is a great deal to celebrate this anniversary year, I especially want to honor and remember Mr. Hiroshi Imamura, who passed away in November, 2008. For his kind and generous effort, I am deeply grateful. We will always remember him with great fondness and admiration.

Eric Carle

Where I Live Now

Dear Friends,

Since turning 75 when I made the decision to retire from the daily office and studio work, I have been fortunate to live in two places of great beauty, spending the winter in one of the Florida keys and the summer in the mountains of North Carolina. My wife Bobbie is from North Carolina and still has friends and family nearby so we both feel right at home and taken in by the warmth of the community there. We have a view of the hills that are sometimes so covered in fog it is like an ocean of mist outside our windows. But the climate in the summer is very comfortable. For many years, we lived in the hills of western Massachusetts, also a beautiful area, (and we moved there from New York City! You see I have been moving around a lot!). We had a very nice flower garden there and I enjoyed watching out for visitors from the nearby forest including bears, deer, porcupines, foxes, skunks and many birds. Once I opened the door from the inside of the house and stood nose to nose with a bear, separated by the screen door only. I don't know who was more surprised! Then the bear ran away. Actually they are very shy.

In Florida, our home is very close to the water and we are constantly marveling at the view of the ocean, Ospreys and Pelicans flying past and Iguanas strutting among the palm trees and mangroves. This is very far from the kinds of views I had as a child in Germany, and yet the closeness to nature is not that different from what I enjoyed as a child when my father took me out for walks and showed me all that could be found on a trail in the woods.

I will turn 80 years old in June and it is wonderful to have these days by the sea and in the hills, with Bobbie and all of our close friends and family nearby or able to visit. And to have a studio to work in both places. I have no complaints.

Eric Carle

Japan Exhibit

Dear Friends,

I am fortunate to have been able to travel over the years. My visits to Japan have been very inspiring. In Japan, there are numerous Picture Book Museums, some small, some large, and it was during our visits to Japan that my wife Bobbie and I had the idea to build The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in the U.S.

This year there was an exhibit of my work, including non-book-art, in Japan that is still on tour. Since I turned 75 I have cut back on my travels quite a bit, but I was so pleased to see photographs of the opening exhibit in Tokyo taken by Motoko, my assistant of many years, who is originally from Japan as well as more recent photos from the exhibition in Kyoto. I hope you will enjoy these pictures!

More soon,
Eric Carle

P.S.

This exhibit will be on view at the following locations in Japan in 2008-2009:

JR Kyoto Isetan until 28 December, 2008

JR Nagoya Takashimaya 17 February - 2 March, 2009

Sogo Museum of Art 3 April - 6 May, 2009

Sapporo Daimaru 13 May - 25 May, 2009

Christmas Cookies

Dear Friends,

Happy Holidays!

While I wasn't raised in a religious family, we celebrated Christmas and there were certain rituals that coincided with this holiday that I still remember very well. Weeks ahead of Christmas both my grandmothers started baking cookies: SPRINGERLE HASELNUSSGUTSLE, STERNE, LEBKUCHEN, STOLLEN and other mouth watering creations - or should I say "tongue twisting" after you have attempted to pronounce the German names for all kinds of delicious goodies?

Then my grandmothers would hide the cookies. It was easy to figure out where they had hidden them, all you had to do was follow your nose. But that would lead you to a locked door! And you needed 2 keys. One for the locked door and a second key for a locked chest inside the locked room. Well, usually we grandchildren had a way of getting those keys. Then there was a lot of sneaking around and a greatly reduced stock of Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve!

Every year my grandmothers pretended that they were surprised and scolded us. And they were going to tell Saint Nicholas. But they never did and I suspect that they knew that cookie stealing was also part of Christmas. I guess they figured that some of the cookies were going to get "lost" and therefore made an extra batch or two.

Maybe you have a ritual in your family that you will remember for a long time as well!

Eric Carle