HOW BEAUTIFUL

A little caterpillar explores the meaning of beautiful.

“Happy on his leaf,” a caterpillar spends his days eating, sleeping, and creeping about. He never questions anything until an Unknown Thing picks him up and tells him, “You’re so beautiful.” Mystified, the caterpillar wonders, “What does beautiful mean?” He asks a passing bear the meaning of beautiful, and the bear says the honeycomb in its paws is beautiful. Three squirrels tell him the leaves they’re playing in are beautiful. A mouse sheltering under a mushroom thinks the mushroom’s beautiful. A deer resting on an abandoned sofa finds it beautiful, and a mole finds its underground hole beautiful. A hypercritical blackbird who has strongly disagreed with each animal’s opinion on what’s beautiful finds an empty can beautiful. Discontent, sad, and discouraged by the different responses to his question, the caterpillar sits down at day’s end with the other animals. Suddenly, they see something all can agree is beautiful. As the caterpillar pursues the abstract concept of beauty, the decorative illustrations themselves offer a striking example. Readers will need to examine the intricate, curvilinear drawings carefully to discover the little caterpillar and his forest cronies cleverly concealed by myriad twisting branches, leaves, vines, roots, and flowers executed in a bold palette of dark blues, reds, and yellows reminiscent of Eastern European folk art.

Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder in this unique tale.