The Very Hungry Caterpillar

‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ is a very famous children’s book that was both written and illustrated by Eric Carle in 1969. The story is about a young caterpillar searching for food. Every page features food that he eats and you can see the literal holes left in the paper as he goes through the entire book. It has constantly been on sale for over 50 years and is considered to be one of the greatest childhood classics of all time. It has sold upwards of 50 million copies and has been translated into more than 60 languages.

I wanted to find an IP that would be attractive to young builders but also capture the nostalgia of parents and adults. When I considered a children’s book, this was the first one I thought of as it was one of the very first books I ever remember reading with a schoolteacher and the idea struck!

I think this will appeal to many people. And would look good on the shelf of a school room, library, bedroom or office desk. It has educational qualities, great playability and posing opportunities.

I love the bendy poses of the original Caterpillar illustrations and wanted to create a Caterpillar that could mimic those poses easily. So I segmented the body and added ball hinges which gives great movability to the build.

I tried to match the look of the Caterpillar as best as I could. It has the same amount of legs and I used 2 different greens and a turquoise colour to achieve the body. The spine pops nicely with a yellow red and blue stripe. I did try to make the eyes completely lego but felt a print actually worked best for this character in the end.

Of course the Caterpillar is VERY hungry! So he needed some fruit to eat as well. Using the illustrations again as inspiration, I have constructed an Apple, Pear, Plum, Strawberry and Orange for him. These are the first 5 items he finds in the book and they all have the famous ‘hole’ in their build.

There are exactly 350 pieces with some very interesting colours.

I really hope you enjoy what I’ve built. There will be tweaks along the way no doubt. I look forward to reading any constructive comments and hope the concept intrigues you enough to support! Thanks!