Licensing Hotline: Very Licensed Products

Author Eric Carle has forged his first major licensing deal, authorizing a line of apparel, décor and toys with leading infant-product marketer Carter's. "It gives us a way of doing a unique licensing arrangement that encompasses a lot of different products and that will have continuity to it," said Motoko Inoue, Carle's business manager. "It's difficult to interpret the characters into three dimensions," she added, citing that as one reason Carle previously had done little licensing outside games, puzzles and promotional items.

Carle has written more than 50 children's books. The Carter's line will focus on The Very Hungry Caterpillar in most categories of product, as well as featuring images from the other "Very" books (The Very Busy Spider, etc.) and The Tiny Seed.