Among all his influences Eric’s father was the main one who influenced him to pursue writing & illustrating books about creatures & nature. He always had a strong connection and respect for him.
Initiated actually as a story about a book worm, hoever the editor was not very happy about it. The editor suggested another creature like a “caterpillar”. Eric Carle, exclaimed,”Butterfly!”
Fun Fact: All the food that the caterpillar eats is actually what Eric Carle ate at his aunt’s house.
(1) Eric Carle was born in 1929, in Syracuse, New York. He grew up most of his early childhood in America, but the age of 6 years old his parents moved to Germany. As a young boy his father always took him to go on walks thru meadows and woods, and would pick
up rocks or peel tree barks, and tell him the life cycles each living creature (1). That influenced Eric to pursue creating his books about creatures. As an adult, he gained his education and graduated from Akademie der bildenden Kunste in Stuggart, a famous art school in Germany. In 1952, his long term dream came true and he returned to America to start work as a graphic designer in the New York Times. However, Eric’s true art career began when author Bill Martin Jr. asked him to illustrate one of his books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, after seeing his red lobster ad on a magazine.(3) Eric Carle has a very unique and recognizable art technique that he uses in his books. It is called collage technique using tissue paper and hand painted cut outs. Eric Carle uses, sponges, brushes, even his fingerprints to create different variations of texture (4). Additionally, he uses a variety of bright colors in his paintings. Brown Bear, Brown Bear became a very famous and loved book that Eric Carle decided to pursue that path and started creating his own books like 1, 2, 3, The Zoo and The Very Hungry Caterpillar(2). In 2002, he opened up a Picture Book Art Museam, that gives tribute to all his work and other famous artist. Until this day Eric Carle’s books continue to be the best known and loved books all around the
"Everyone is influenced by their childhood. The things I write about and illustrate come from a vast range of inputs, from the earliest impressions of a little child, others from things I saw yesterday and still others from completely out of the blue, though no doubt they owe their arrival to some stimulus, albeit unconscious. I have a great love of wildlife, inherited from my parents, which show through in my subject matter, though always with a view to the humorous—not as a reflective device but as a reflection of my own fairly happy nature.
In the essay, David Suzuki explains how her daughter’s friends were afraid when she “brings home new friends” (128), which are salamanders. While I believe salamanders are really cool, I actually never got to see one (which upsets me), but instead, I used to play with caterpillars. As a young student back in North Agincourt, I loved to go to the leaves during springtime and get a caterpillar on my hand. I used to love the cute cuddly animals walking on my hand, yet when I show them to my friends, they would not get scared, but rather disgusted and said things such as “Eww. Why is that crawling on your hand?” While a caterpillar is not a salamander, the concept was similar. Kids were adapted to be disgusted by “creepy crawlers” and fear them, and part of the blame goes to parents. While some parents don’t fear these sorts of animals, they don’t tell their kids not to fear nor accept them, and so when the kids see these animals, they fear what they don’t understand. In my opinion, it is important to get the kids to interact with these animals and not be afraid of them. As David Suzuki states, parents need to understand that by not letting our kids understand and engage in their curiosity unbiased, they are harming them with “the unspoken, negative lessons [they] are conveying to [their] children” (Suzuki
Alvarez, Julia. In The Time of the Butterflies. New York, NY: Penguin, 1994. Print Hardback. 31 Oct 2013 - 8 Dec 2013.
To start, The author Carl Hiaasen was born on March 12, 1953, in Plantation, Florida, a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale. He was the first of four children born to Odel and Patricia Hiaasen. He started writing from the age of six. In 1970 he graduated from Plantation High School and entered Emory University, where he wrote the school-run newspaper called the Emory Wheel. Two years later, he transferred to the
It was a recent trip to the Kohl’s Department Store in Springhill, TN that declared what children’s author would be the best fit for writing a paper that addresses the best traits and limitations of such a person. Kohl’s Department Stores are currently featuring and selling four of award winning children’s author and illustrator Eric Carle’s books and plush animals in support of their program Kohl’s Cares, which gives 100 percent of their profit to support health and education initiatives in communities all over the nation. The books The Mixed-Up Chameleon, The Hungry Caterpillar, The Foolish Tortoise, and The Grouchy Ladybug, and plush chameleons, caterpillars, tortoises, and ladybugs can be purchased separately for five dollars each (“Kohl’s Cares,” 2011). On the inside flap of the featured books is a personal message from Carle stating how delighted he is for his books to be a part of the Kohl’s Cares program. He further states, “Thank you for your interest in my books and for sharing them with special people in your life.” Eric Carle’s books and merchandise makes over $50 million per year (Setoodeh, 2009). It was the award winning publication of Carle’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar in 1969 that started the chain of events that is now an empire of merchandise in its own right (“Eric,” 2002). Carle’s family and friends have speculated to why and how one book could become so successful, and Carle remarks that “’it is a book about hope. If you’re an insignificant caterpillar, you can grow up to be a butterfly in the world’” (Setoodeh, 2009). Carle’s childhood was a difficult one filled with much tribulations due to World War II.
Elie was born on September 30, 1928; he lived in Sighet, Transylvania that is now present-day Romania. When Ellie was 15 he was transferred to Auschwitz along with his younger sister, his mom, and his father.
While staying at Mel’s home, the adolescent female narrator personifies the butterfly paperweight. The life cycle begins with the narrator “hearing” the butterfly sounds, and believing the butterfly is alive. The butterfly mirrors the narrator’s feelings of alienation and immobility amongst her ‘new family’ in America. She is convinced the butterfly is alive, although trapped inside thick glass (le 25). The thick glass mirrors the image of clear, still water. To the adolescent girl, the thick glass doesn’t stop the sounds of the butterfly from coming through; however, her father counteracts this with the idea of death, “…can’t do much for a dead butterfly” (le 31). In order to free the butterfly, the narrator throws the disk at a cabinet of glass animals, shattering the paperweight, as well as the glass animals. The shattering of the glass connects to the shattering of her being, and her experience in fragility. The idea of bringing the butterfly back to life was useless, as the motionless butterfly laid there “like someone expert at holding his breath or playing dead” (le 34). This sense of rebirth becomes ironic as the butterfly did not come back to life as either being reborn or as the manifestation of a ghostly spirit; instead its cyclic existence permeates through the narrator creating a transformative
her grandmother) and grief, Viramontes successfully paints an endearing tale of change. “The Moths” emphasizes the narrator’s oppression by her
When Rolf Carle attempts to mask his wounds and make them vanish like they’d never even been there, the pain returns and consumes him entirely. He sees a “fragment” of his past in the dying little girl. The event turns out to have a greater impact on him than Azucena. His full sense of consciousness was finally returned once the “unyielding floodgates” of agony and emotion poured out. In Rolf’s battle to save the young girl, he ultimately ends up saving himself.
“I’m for the truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole” (X). This quote by Malcolm X represented his attitude towards equality and self-empowerment. The true Malcolm X was a passionate human rights activist as well as an extremely outspoken man during the fifties and sixties. X encouraged millions of African Americans to fight for what they believed in and to take pride in their ethnicity. X persuaded a multitude of African Americans that they are supreme and should not be degraded for their skin color. He learned at a very early age if he wanted something in life, he had to make some noise
There are many similarities to be found between the books written by Dr. Seuss and my original work . For this project I decided to mimic the writing styles that can be found within The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, two of his most popular books. In 1954 Life magazine published a report about illiteracy among school children. This article stated that children were bored by the books that were available to them at the beginning reader level. His publisher sent Mr. Geisel a list of 400 words that he thought were important for “new readers” to learn. Geisel used 220 of the words and wrote the infamous book titled The Cat in the Hat. This book was an instant success among children and parents. While writing my original work for this project I wrote myself a list of 300 words that I thought would be important for new readers to learn. Out of the 220 words that I selected I utilized approximately 125 of them within my book. In the Dr. Seuss book titled One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish there is no plot that is carried throughout the entire book. Each page is a ...
Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in the town of Sighet in Transylvania, Romania. His parents, Shlomo Wiesel and Sarah Feig, had three other children, including Elie. The three other siblings were his sisters Hilda, Bea, and Tsiporah. Wiesel and his family were primarily an Orthodox Jewish family. When he was very young, he started to study Hebrew and the Bible.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, is perhaps one of the most beloved children’s authors of the twentieth century. Although he is most famous as an author of children’s books, Geisel was also a political cartoonist, advertisement designer, and film director (Kaplan). He used the power of imagination to produce unforgettable children’s books and helped solve the problem of illiteracy among America’s children. By using his experiences in life as a foundation for most of his books, Theodor Geisel created a unique writing style that incorporated various elements and techniques, enabling his books to appeal to people of all ages.
Eric Erikson (1902-1994) was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He never knew his own father and was raised by his mother and stepfather. He struggled with his identity during youth as he never felt fully accepted by his stepfather. However he did adopt his
Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. Walt soon moved to Marceline, Missouri where he lived much of his younger years. In