Monday, December 9, 2013

LIFE LIST UPDATE – No. 436: Read “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White

“Charlotte’s Web” is one of those iconic childhood books that almost all of us read in elementary school. When I was an elementary school student, I know that I watched the cartoon adaptation of this book, but for whatever reason, I never read the actual book even though a lot of kids in my class did. A couple of years ago, I found an old copy my wife owned when she was a young girl, so I added “Read ‘Charlotte’s Web’” to my “life list.”

“Charlotte’s Web,” which was written by E.B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams, was published in 1952. Now considered a classic of children’s literature, it’s also one of the best-selling paperback books of all time. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

For those of you who haven’t read it, “Charlotte’s Web” is mostly about the plight of a young pig named Wilbur. Wilbur was born on a small farm and was bottled fed as a piglet by a young girl named Fern. When Wilbur gets older, he’s sent to live on the farm of Fern’s uncle, Homer Zuckerman.

As Wilbur grows older and bigger, it becomes apparent that his ultimate fate is the farmer’s knife. The other barnyard animals tell him that he’ll eventually grow large enough for the farmer to kill and turn into bacon and pork chops. The news distresses the young pig, who begins trying to find a way to escape his ultimate fate.

Wilbur eventually befriends a small gray spider named Charlotte, who comes to Wilbur’s rescue. She begins weaving words into her webs over Wilbur’s pen, and when the farmers see this, they think it’s a miracle. For me, one of the big unanswered questions from the book is how Charlotte learned to read and write English in the first place.

Wilbur eventually becomes famous for the descriptive web words over his pen, which include such phrases as “Some Pig.” People from far and wide come to see this miracle pig, and it eventually becomes apparent that Wilbur is too valuable to hack up for the dinner table. Of course, this was Charlotte’s plan all along.

The Zuckermans eventually take Wilbur to the county fair, where he becomes a huge attraction. He might not be the biggest and finest pig at the fair, but he is the most unusual thanks to Charlotte’s webwork. Charlotte accompanies Wilbur to the fair and continues to awe crowds with the messages in her web.

The story takes a sad turn when Charlotte lays her egg sac, but begins to die. The dying Charlotte declines to return to Zuckerman’s farm with Wilbur at the end of the fair, so Wilbur takes her egg sac back to the far with him. The story ends with Charlotte’s descendents continuing to live at the farm with Wilbur.

When it was all said and done, I did enjoy reading this book, but I think I’m a little too old to get the full effect. It’s a book for children, so I think I’m no longer in the book’s “target audience.” That’s not to say the book wasn’t enjoyable. I just shouldn’t have waited 30 years to read it.

In the end, how many of you have read “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White? What did you think about it? What other books from your childhood would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.

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