Clara the Caterpillar, by Pamela Duncan Edwards, illustrated by Henry Cole

This fantastic book has a strong social and emotional theme. The story focuses on how one butterfly is unkind to Clara, and they are judgmental about her appearance. At the end of the story though, Clara emerges as a hero, and sends a wonderful message of you can still be kind to those who are not kind to you. It celebrates that we are all different and all special. 

Clara the Caterpillar offers up lovely vocabulary, some of which may be new to your child and require a little extra thought. It features words such as, ‘crestfallen,’ ‘camouflaged’ and ‘crimson,’ and provides tons of opportunities for you to pause and chat about the illustrations or language. 

Not only might your child hear lots of new words, but the book could help them to get to grips with initial sounds. We love its alliterative properties, as it significantly emphasises the sound 'c,' but also touches on the sound 's.' Both are exciting sounds to say as a child.  

To top it all off, you’ll find fabulous learning about life cycles. You follow a group of caterpillars as they transition into butterflies; in one part the caterpillars are inside their chrysalis, and they start to complain about how it feels. Words such as 'creased’, ‘crumpled’ and ‘cranky’ are used to describe what it’s like, yet Clara describes her space as ’cosy.’ It’s fantastic to read how Clara sees her chrysalis from a different perspective – this caterpillar doesn’t follow the trend! 

This truly delightful story has charming pictures and lots of fun words to explore. It’s a book for children of all ages to enjoy and keep coming back to for many years. 

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