Today’s Google logo rendering is amazing! In case you don’t recognize it, the drawing is by Eric Carle in honor of his classic children’s book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” which turns 40 this year. 

But it has a hopeful message I must have absorbed too. In an interview published by the British Telegraph, Carle, who’s 80 now, says he got the idea for a book about a worm from a hole-puncher–it was his editor who suggested making it a caterpillar. “I think The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a hopeful story,”  Carle told the paper, “because it says ‘you too little caterpillar can grow up, spread your wings and fly’. I think it is this message of hope that resonates for many readers.”

And then he shared this lovely bit: “When I was a boy, my father would take me on walks across meadows and through woods. He would lift a stone or peel back the bark of a tree and show me the living things that lived underneath. These were very magical times and I think in my books I honour my father by writing about small creatures and the natural world. And in a way I recapture those happy times we had together.”

Yum.

Check out this lovely video interview with Eric Carle about his inspiration for the book and his creative process: