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I love when I find a new (to me) author. One that makes me want to research and read biographies, and look for out-of-print books and read everything he or she has ever written.

This doesn’t happen all that often. And these days, it happens to be authors of children’ books that intrigue me most.

My admiration for Eric Carle began last year when my son received Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? for his first birthday. Every book I’ve read since has made me hungry for more.

My sister passed alongThe Very Hungry Caterpillar to us, which I’d seen displayed at the bookstore but had never read. My son prides himself on being able to name every bit of junk food that the caterpillar eats!

At his second birthday party he received two Very Hungry Caterpillar Happy 2nd Birthday cards. They are adorable!

He also received The BePuzzled Wooden Puzzle Set which feature creatures from his books.

Then I found The Very Busy Spider and From Head to Toe at the library. When it was time to return the books, my son was especially sad to see From Head To Toe go, so we went to the local bookstore to buy a copy for our personal collection.

While there we read The Very Quiet Cricket, The Grouchy Ladybug, and The Greedy Python.

I love that they offer all of these titles in board books.

And imagine our excitement when today on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Mr. Rogers paid Eric Carle a visit to his studio! We saw first hand how Mr. Carle creates his beautiful illustrations by painting on tissue paper, and then makes collages out of many different colored pages.

He told us a little about his life, and It was so inspiring hearing the story of how his parents nurtured his natural artistic gifts.

He then read From Head To Toe to the television audience. It was such a treat.

As soon as I could, I went online to see what else I could discover about Eric Carle. And here’s what I found!

He has a great website, with resources like coloring pages and how to make collages, as well as book lists, and other useful links.

He has a blog

There is The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Books in Massachusetts I really look forward to visiting some day.

The more I look, the more I realize there are Eric Carle books/toys/games/puzzles/fabric/food/galore and I’m sure many of you are wondering how on earth I just discovered him. I have no answer for that, I’m only glad I know about him now.

How about you?  Who’s your favorite children’s book author?