This one is a favourite from my childhood that I had been looking forward to sharing with Toby and we finally got a chance to read it this week. Sensing an opportunity pre-nap for a quick read, things started off well. The iconic illustrations took my sister and I straight back to childhood and seemed to entrance Toby to the extent that he sat quietly in my sister’s lap as she turned the pages. At the halfway point he appeared fully invested but this was a false dawn for us as just before we turned over to the last page of the book, Toby decided he was done. He pushed the book to the floor, reached for his white noise machine to try and turn that on, and then knocked the iPad that I was facetiming them from, to the floor.
The ignominious end aside, this is a beautiful book that belongs on every child’s bookcase. It is now over fifty years old but could have been written yesterday. I love the small hole punched through every item of food to show the caterpillars progress, and I adore the fact that he swiftly abandons his sensible fruit-based diet for one of ice cream and cake. That there are subtle repercussions for this should allow parents to show their children why we can’t just eat junk all time, even if it is yummy.
I highly recommend this book, although you should perhaps leave a little longer before naptime to allow for completion than I did.
