When came the time to publish the first edition of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle, the editor struggled to find a publisher in the U.S. capable of printing and binding the book as it had been designed - with perforations and pages in various widths.
In the summer of 1968, the editor visited Japan and showed samples of the book to Hiroshi Imamura, the late president of Kaisei-Sha Publishing Co., who immediately fell in love with the picture book. He leveraged his network and found a company to accept the order to print and bind the book.
Thus, the first edition of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” got this very unexpected mention: "Printed in Japan".
