Even now, as adults, most of us remember our favorite childhood book. For many, this book was the children’s classic “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle.

On Wednesday, the DeKalb Public Library, 309 Oak St., held a 40th anniversary celebration for the release of the book. The event featured a reading of the book accompanied by a puppet show, as well as an art activity for the children planned by students from NIU’s children’s literature class.

“Eric Carle, as far as children’s authors go, is such a star,” said Dr. Chris Carger, professor of literacy education. “And his book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” is such a classic, so we decided to do this special event.”

Once the kids and their parents found their way to the children’s section in the library, four early childhood majors began passing out paper cutouts of the described food in the book and prepping their caterpillar puppet. As Kimberly Differding, Rachel Glavac, Leslie Holliday and Breanne Johnson began to read and act out their puppet show, they also helped the children feed the caterpillar each specific food.

“We don’t want them to just sit there silently.” Carger said. “We really want them to participate and interact with the book.”

The children enjoyed the story and presentation so much that the students read it twice for them.

“Yum, yum, yum!” said four-year-old Briana Dobberstein as she fed the puppet a paper cutout of an apple. “He’s a very hungry caterpillar!”

Besides providing the children with a fun and stimulating activity, this event helped out parents as well.

“For parents who don’t have a children’s literature background, they may discover this author … so hopefully we’ll lead them to books and also give them an idea of what they can do with reading books to children, as well as an activity that links up with it, and getting the kids to interact with the books.”

Differding, one of the students participating in the event, recognized the benefits this activity has for the children.

“It teaches about sharing,” Differding said. “They get to interact with other kids that maybe they don’t normally get to do on a regular basis. Plus, it’s really fun to see how excited [the children] got about feeding the caterpillar.”

Besides this event, the celebration of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” extended to Wright and Chesebro elementary schools as well. Children’s literature professor Melanie Koss, along with two of her classes, facilitated similar activities at the schools on Monday and Tuesday to commemorate Caterpillar’s 40th birthday.