Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

1953 Newbery Honor
Finished 12-9-06

Wilbur the pig is having the worst day of his entire two-month-old life. The rain ruins all of his nice plans for the day, he doesn’t have any friends, a rat is eating his breakfast, and Mr. Zuckerman dosed him with sulphur and molasses. As he is trying to go to sleep that night, wallowing in his misery, a voice speaks up and offers to be his friend. Wilbur can hardly sleep that night in anticipation, and when he wakes up in the morning, he meets his new friend: a spider named Charlotte. And though neither of them knows it, Charlotte’s friendship with Wilbur will save him—from death—in a way he can’t even imagine.

I loved the gentle humor in this book. The whole foundation of the book is the friendship between Charlotte and Wilbur, and the combination of the cluelessness of Wilbur and the zip and bite of Charlotte is often a comical contrast. The other characters from the barn are creative as well, and provide some entertaining moments.

For those of you who have heard of the ending, and are hesitant to the read the book because of that, I can assure you that it’s not how you think it is. Though at first it might seem like it would end the book on a sour note, to me, the very ending is sweetly satisfying. Even though the book has its sad moments, I don’t get that desire to rewrite the ending as I always do when I read a book that has a dissatisfying ending.

If you haven’t yet, this is a must read. On a side note, this book only garnered a Newbery Honor. It will be interesting to read the Winner from that year and see what could have been placed over Charlotte’s Web. I already suspect that it can’t be as good. But if it is, I’ll stand corrected.