Charlotte’s Web
by E.B. White, illustrated by Garth Williams
In 1952, E.B. White put out one of the most beloved children’s books of all time. Charlotte’s Web, a book about an innocent and wide-eyed pig named Wilbur, and a spider, the eponymous Charlotte, and her mission to keep Wilbur from being slaughtered.
The book is barn full of other animal characters and human characters that all interact in Wilbur and Charlotte’s world. There’s a rat who is willingly manipulated through his selfishness; a talkative goose who causes mischief at will; Fern, a girl who initially saves Wilbur from getting killed by her father in the beginning of the book; her uncle, Homer Zuckerman, who keeps Wilbur in his barn; and much more!
It’s a curious book in that it’s made for 8-12 year-olds. It’s 192 pages long. The vocabulary, especially from Charlotte, is rather advanced. The major themes of death and change are heavy and at the forefront of the whole book. It’s not buried, hinted at, handled with kid gloves. It starts off with the threat of death and has death throughout the book. It would seem to be a very mature book for kids.
But that is who the book is written for and marketed to. And kids did like it and seem to keep liking it. In 2000, it was listed as Publishers Weekly’s best-selling children’s paperback of all time. It’s a Newbury Honor Award winner. It’s currently #55 in Amazon’s Children’s Classics with 4.8 out of 5 stars and over 29,000 reviews.
I know my daughters, especially my youngest daughter, really liked it when they read it in elementary school. I had watched the cartoon movie when I was younger. I’m pretty sure I didn’t grasp all the technicalities of the relationships, the up-and-downs of Wilbur’s struggle to find a true friend, and Charlotte’s steadfast loyalty to Wilbur, even when all the light was shining on him when she was the one creating all the magic.
It really is an amazing story with a lot of depth. From the way it was written—the extended paragraph of Fern and her brother swinging is a masterclass in manipulation of the English language to get your point across. It’s the children’s version of Cormac McCarthy’s “legion of horribles” sentence in Blood Meridian. If it doesn’t get your literary blood pumping, I don’t know what would. Can you imagine a child reading such greatness and them not getting their literary blood pumping? My child that really liked Charlotte’s Web? She went on to read and like Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment as a teen.
Rereading Charlotte’s Web as a middle-aged empty nester, I’ve new-found respect for its relevancy, its impact to literature. On a more thoughtful note, I thought there were little nods to Orwell’s Animal Farm and funnily enough, when I google it, other people thought so, too! And check out this article from Reactormag.com. Let’s Ruin Some Childhoods: Charlotte’s Web – Reactor (reactormag.com). There are some interesting points brought up there.
But, Mr. White does go out of his way to let the reader know Charlotte is disregarded as much as Wilbur is regarded. Was it due to species-related or gender-related bigotry? Or, is the internet reading just a bit too much into a simple tale of anthropomorphic animals? Maybe it’s just a book that introduces children to the very real reality of death in things we know, love and care about? Who knows?
I still found it very enjoyable, with the thought of poor Wilbur running to and fro due to the egging on from the goose, to Wilbur again, running and doing somersaults, this time at Charlotte’s prompt, to Wilbur waking everybody up to try to find his new best friend and all the other animals telling Wilbur to pipe down—it’s a lot of fun to read, while also going over some heavy and thoughtful topics, like death and relationships.
With that, Mrs. Udderbutter stamps her Hoof of Approval!
Have fun reading!