LoveReading4Kids Says
A extraordinary story, exquisitely written, with unforgettable passages of dialogue and description, that confronts the dilemma of our relationship with farm animals. Witty, and in places, desperately sad this is a book where animals talk yet remain who they are, themselves. A book to make you cry. - Michael Morpurgo
Magical, this timeless farmyard story tells of the power of friendship. When the runty little piglet is saved from an early death, he grows into a fine and handsome pig. And the farmer wants to kill him. Can Charlotte, the spider who has grown to love him, save his life?
Reviewed by Julia Eccleshare M.B.EJulia Eccleshare has a lifetime of working within children’s books as a critic, an editor, an author and a commentator.
More reviews by Julia Eccleshare M.B.E About Charlotte's Web
This is the tale of how a little girl named Fern, with the help of a friendly spider, saved her pig, Wilbur, from the usual fate of nice fat little pigs.
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About E B White
Elwyn Brooks White was born in Mount Vernon, New York, as the son of Samuel White, a prosperous piano manufacturer, and Jessie (Hart) White; she was forty-one and Samuel was forty-five. Elwyn was the youngest child of a large family, where parents really loved children. On Elwyn's twelfth birthday his father wrote to him: "You are the object of the affectionate solicitude of your mother and father. Then you have been born a Christian. When you reflect that the great majority of men are born in heathen lands in dense ignorance and superstition it is something to be thankful for that you have the light that giveth life."
After graduating from Cornell University in 1921, White worked in some miscellaneous jobs, such as reporter for United Press, American Legion News Service, and the Seattle Times. In 1924 he returned to New York. He worked as a production assistant and advertising copywriter before joining the newly established New Yorker. There he met his wife, Katherine Sergeant Angell, who was the magazine's literary editor. They married in 1929. For 11 years he wrote for the magazine editorial essays and contributed verse and other pieces. Among the other writers with whom White and his wife become friends were Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and Stephen Leacock.
Between writing columns, White also published children's books. STUART LITTLE (1945) depicted an independent and adventurous child, the size of mouse, who is born into a human family. After various adventures Stuart goes in search of a bird whose life he had previously saved. CHARLOTTE'S WEB (1952) was about the friendship between a young pig, Wilbur, and a spider, Charlotte A. Cavitica. She craftily saves him from the butcher's knife through the message, ''Some Pig'', she weaves in her web - only to die alone. In THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN (1970) a mute swan learns to trumpet and becomes a celebrity. In these works White explored such themes as loyalty, tolerance, and rural living. They have become for many young readers unforgettable guides into the world of fiction.
E.B. White died of Alzheimer disease on October 1, 1985 in North Brooklin, Maine. He was awarded the gold medal for essays and criticism of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 1978. He held honorary degrees from seven American colleges and universities and was a member of the American Academy.
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