Along with others such as Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar makes for an excellent case study into how simple can equal super-popular.
I like this book because of its subtle healthy-eating message. So many picture books rely upon stock yuck, but here it’s the green food that saves the caterpillar.
STORY STRUCTURE OF THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR
Hungry caterpillar is hungry.
He wants food.
This is a good example of a children’s story in which we might say ‘nature’ is the opponent. (That’s not true in many stories for adults, unless you’re talking about a disaster story.)
He started to look for some food.
He ate a bunch of food.
He got a stomach ache, and in order to ‘win out’ he ate a nice green leaf.
…and after that he felt much better.
Now he wasn’t hungry any more — and he wasn’t a little caterpillar any more. He was a big fat caterpillar.
He built a small house, stayed there for a while and
he was a beautiful butterfly!
And if the story hadn’t ended there it wouldn’t be a children’s book any more.
Because we all know what happens next.