Now, in its second turn at the Pittsburgh museum, the show will occupy around 2,000 square feet in the traveling gallery, where visitors can follow the caterpillar’s path, weave alongside the busy spider and experiment with Carle’s signature collage process.
Anne Fullenkamp, the museum’s senior director of creative experiences, who helped design “Very Eric Carle” and now oversees its travel and return, said visitors will see Carle’s artwork throughout, with each of the “Very” books presented as a large-scale experience. Children can feel as if they are entering the books and encountering the stories from the perspective of the featured characters.
While Carle’s books may appear simple, they are often layered with themes of loneliness, belonging and persistence. “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” for example, explores hope, reassurance and transformation. Fullenkamp said that when designing activities centered on such abstract ideas, she aims to make them tangible and relatable. “We wanted to create a setting where kids and their adults can practice skills and have meaningful conversations,” she said. “Our approach for this exhibit was to identify the singular trait of each ‘Very’ story and use the images and words to recreate the setting.”
In “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” the caterpillar — the exhibition’s star and the first character visitors encounter — leads children through the book’s pages one by one as they navigate through heavy-duty fabric panels, creating a tunnellike passage. They emerge at a butterfly shadow-theater activity where they can design butterfly wings using colors and shapes inspired by the artist’s paper-collage style.
“The Very Quiet Cricket” turns the gallery into a miniature orchestra. Children can touch a floor-to-ceiling wall mural of the cricket and its insect friends to create a musical composition of rhythms and insect sounds from nature.
Next comes “The Very Lonely Firefly,” where visitors are invited to move their hands and bodies before an interactive video to lure a firefly toward their glow. “When kids are in front of the video and work with others, multiple fireflies come together to form a group, reinforcing the theme of friendship that is presented in the book,” Fullenkamp said.