By Eric Carle
The caterpillar a child already knows by heart, rebuilt as an elaborate pop-up so the food and the butterfly rise up off the page in real folded paper.
One little egg on a leaf, then the hungriest caterpillar you ever saw eating his way through the week — one apple, two pears, three plums, all the way to that famous Saturday feast of cake and pie and ice cream, and one green leaf to feel better again. He wraps up in a cocoon and a wide, bright butterfly opens off the last page. It's the story a family already knows cold, only here every stage is paper-engineered: the fruit, the caterpillar, the cocoon, and the butterfly all lift and unfold as you turn the pages.
The draw here isn't the story — your child probably has that down cold already — it's the paper. This is a big, elaborate pop-up edition, and the fun is watching the food and the caterpillar and that final butterfly rise off the page when you already know every word that's coming. That's exactly why the familiar story makes such a good pop-up: nobody's decoding the plot, so everybody can just watch it move. One practical thing to know: these spreads are delicate. Some of the springs and folds will tear if they get pulled, so this is more a book to open together than one to hand a toddler alone on the floor.