Opening lines:
“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
“Out to the hoghouse,” replied Mrs. Arable. “Some pigs were born last night.”
“I don’t see why he needs an ax,” continued Fern, who was only eight.
“Well,” said the mother, “one of the pigs is a runt. It’s very small and weak, and it will never amount to anything. So your father has decided to do away with it.”
Thoughts -
I saw this book sitting on the shelf the other night and had a sudden urge to read it. Maybe it was the finals/exams I was plowing through by day, or all the intense literature I’ve been reading for this project (ahem… War & Peace, Montaigne, The Bible!), but I nestled in under the covers and re-entered the world of little Wilbur the pig, his child friend Fern, and his very dear spider friend, Charlotte.
This was my absolute favorite book as a child (followed closely by Stuart Little, same author). And it definitely held up this time! Not only did I enjoy rereading this classic, I felt transported back to the first moments I read the lines as a child — and that was surreal.
Charlotte’s Web, at its surface, is a story about a runt pig named Wilbur who is saved from slaughter at birth by a little girl named Fern who values the pig for its life — not its size.
When she is forced to sell the pig to a neighbor (Mr. Zuckerman), Fern is welcomed into a world of talking animals (Zuckerman’s barn), where she watches the geese, pig (Wilbur), rat (Templeton), and spider (Charlotte), chatter away the summer in tenors no adult can recognize.
When Wilbur learns from a pair of insensitive geese that he is scheduled to be slaughtered in the winter for the Zuckerman’s holiday dinner, terror melts his knees. Poor Wilbur, prone to hysteria and fainting (how human!), learns in that lively barn about the value of life and friendship, as the bloodthirsty, predatory spider Charlotte pledges to find a way to save his life.
Behind the scenes -
Apparently Charlotte’s Web was never supposed to be a mushy, moral tale. It was an exploration of the miracle of life and death — and the rebirth of new life — which was inspired, very simply, by a spider’s web that E.B. White saw in his barn in Maine in 1949.
White marveled at the miracle of the web, and never saw the spider again. But months later, he realized she’d left behind an egg sac. He confiscated the sac and placed it in a box on the bureau of his New York bedroom. After several weeks, the sudden exodus of an army of baby spiders from the box — proof of the miracle of rebirth – thrilled him.
It is for that miracle that he wrote Charlotte’s Web.
“Anybody who can’t accept the miracle of the web,” he once wrote to his agent,
“shouldn’t try to film it.”
I value Charlotte’s Web because… I got that. Even as a kid.
I didn’t know the story behind the book, of course, but I understood that White’s tale was more than a story about talking pigs and geese and a miracle-weaving arachnid. It was a celebration of everything — of life.
I think the very best books do that — contemplate a surface below the obvious story.
Charlotte’s Web makes me cry. The book appears to be effortlessly written (and is effortlessly read), but the story itself transcends. I could read it over and over and not get tired of it.
What causes that in a piece of literature? Why can I read Pippi Longstocking as an adult and think “eh,” but when I read Charlotte’s Web I am mesmerized?
I don’t really know. That’s part of what I want to learn as I continue this reading journey: What makes good literature? Certainly not the words alone, or the aesthetic quality. It’s something deeper — something I’m only now beginning to notice.
It’s not just good story-telling; it’s the potential for contemplation. Pippi Longstocking makes me think, “Ha! Clever kid.” But do I need to come back to it? Not necessarily.
Charlotte’s Web can be visited again and again. It speaks to children of real and incredible truths. It doesn’t just mumble, “Children should be good. Wash behind your ears,” or challenge that platitude with an over-the-top rule-breaker.
It speaks candidly about life — in a magical marvelous way: through the chatter of animals.
How do we know animals can’t talk? Or that they don’t feel fear about an impending slaughter, or that a spider doesn’t have a thriving sense of valor and know the difference between fair and unfair? White asks these questions without asking them — spilling them into story and allowing the child (er, the adult) to contemplate them. The story acts as a tool for the contemplation, rather than standing alone. The story is a background singer to a greater performance.
Well, anyway, this book remains a lifelong favorite. I respect the story behind White’s inspiration for it, and cannot wait to revisit two more of my favorites from childhood: Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan.
And, well… this book makes me want to read Little House on the Prairie again.
(PS: I have been unable to kill a spider since I read this the other day. And suddenly, spiderwebs have become beautiful to me. How astonishing, that someone inhuman weaved them!) 
.
Would I reread this book?
Yes!!
Favorite character – Charlotte (the spider):
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.
Favorite passage -
We have received a sign, Edith – a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm. There is a large spider’s web in the doorway of the barn cellar, right over the pigpen, and when Lurvy went to feed the pig this morning, he noticed the web because it was foggy, and you know how a spider’s web looks very distinct in a fog. And right spang in the middle of the web there were the words ‘Some Pig’. The words were woven right into the web. They were actually part of the web, Edith. I know, because I have been down there and seen them. It says, ‘Some Pig,’ just as clear as can be. There can be no mistake about it. A miracle has happened and a sign has occurred here on earth, right on our farm, and we have no ordinary pig.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Zuckerman, “it seems to me you’re a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.
Published: 1952
Pages: 184
See all my posts about EB White
Like this book? Check out what else I’ve read in this era, or search for books by author. You can see how this book ranks among my favorites on my book ranking page.
I haven’t read this one in years. My third grade teacher read this one to our class over the course of a couple weeks and when she finished, I made my mom go buy me a copy so I could read it again. I just loved it so dearly. And everything you said is right on. It is about more than a pig and a spider.
I think rereading children’s books you read as a child as an adult is different than picking up an unfamiliar children’s book for the first time as an adult. As a child, there is a kind of magic in stories and an innocence. I know that when I reread series or favorites from when I was younger, I often get nostalgic. I don’t have that feeling with books I was never exposed to. I think the power of my own memories add to my love of the book on the reread. make sense? i sure hope so.
I need to go find my copy now…
And more amazing–for its size, the silk of a spider is one of the strongest materials on earth.
I loved all of these books when I was in elementary school, although I think Trumpet of the Swan was my hands-down favorite.
(And the Little House re-read–go for it! I’ve found that when I’m busy or stressed, rereads of old favorites can be just the ticket…)
Oh, I need to read this again! And I think you’re right: the best books (regardless of their audience) reflect, explain, and help us deal with or experience life in a different way. I always loved the old cartoon of this as well (the one with the rat, whose name escapes me, singing about a fair being a smorgasbord!)
Fantastic post, and I think you’re right-on about what makes the difference between an “eh,” if fun, book, and one that helps you to some “other story.” It can be so disappointing to return to books we loved as kids only to find that they don’t stand up any longer, and it think it’s that Pippi Longstocking thing you mention here…the books may be cute, they may be fun, they may bring you back to some part of their childhood, but they don’t offer anything for an adult to think on, and in some sense fail there. (That seems unfair to say, though, and I’m not sure where to take it…not that every book has to have a “deeper” meaning in order to last, but that the best books, the books we want to read over and over again, will probably offer us something more than we can initially see.)
One of my favorites!!! Thank you for posting – I also linked THIS post in my Friday Five this weekend.
I loved this post. Charlotte’s Web is one of my favorite children’s stories as well. I enjoyed your historical elements and your thought provoking thoughts
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