Before I move on to the book review, I just need to say that I am so fortunate to have borrowed a copy that was autographed by Eric Carle himself(!) and he wrote about his inspiration for this book (see picture below):

This is yet another book that’s filled with colours, bursting with spontaneity. It is hard not to fall in love with his delightful illustrations and that certainly draws any tot’s attention to the book.

I must say that I only flipped through a couple of pages of the book before borrowing it and I had a shock when I was reading the book with Alicia when I came to a page depicting a naked man and woman. That wasn’t quite what I expected and I guess for that reason, this is probably a book not often read to older tots at school.

While the book seems to have some biblical undertones of Creation, and in particular, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and Adam and Eve in the illustration (there’s an apple tree on the left page and the naked couple on the right), I would say that it hardly makes any other significant reference to Christianity.

And upon reading the autograph (see above), you can be quite sure that Eric Carle’s inspiration for the book came mainly from his dream about a falling star rather than religion per se.

The story begins with a star and ends with it – and everything in between just falls neatly into the storyline that he created.

It is a book that tots would enjoy. I know, because my Alicia did, tremendously. 🙂