Colin McEnroe Show: Is Charlotte's Web The Greatest Children's Book Ever?
E.B. White combined reality, fantasy and adult themes into his classic book.
Published: Jun 21, 2011
Slideshow
Michael Sims
Photo:Chion Wolf
Gregory Feeley
Photo:Chion Wolf
The Story of Charlotte’s Web: E.B. White’s Eccentric Life and the Birth of an American Classic by Michael Sims
Photo:Chion Wolf
Audio Playlist
Colin McEnroe Show: Is Charlotte's Web The Greatest Children's Book Ever?
"But, Charlotte," said Wilbur, "I'm not terrific."
That doesn't make a particle of difference," replied Charlotte. "Not a particle. People believe almost anything they see in print."
Those sentences sum up one virtue of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. A different sort of book would have had the spider insisting that the pig really was terrific. But Charlotte's Web sits on an unusually even keel. Things are not made to seem a lot better (or worse) than they really are. White eschewed the ill-advised sunniness of post-war America and of much children's culture. Kids know better. From an early age, they see that things are born and then they die and that life is both marvelous and frightening.
Charlotte's Web got one of its first good reviews from a similar writer, P.L. Travers, whose Mary Poppins books were far darker than the ill-advisedly sunny movie.
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E-mail from Diane
This is a terrific piece about E.B. White: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lepore I'm sure your guests are aware of it. It illustrates just how different his books were.
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