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Today I thought I’d take a closer look at the differences between fables and parables and come up with some recommendations for readers of all ages who enjoy a little learning with their leisure. A fable is: a short story that conveys a moral to the reader, typically with animals as characters. A parable is: a short story designed […]

A few months ago, Melody Franklin from Smartling.com, approached me with the following request: please discuss your favorite piece of literature in a post on your blog. Whether it’s by Jane Austen, J.D. Salinger, Emily Brontë, or a contemporary author, … Continue reading →

“Charlotte’s Web”

A farmer allows sentimental drawings by a bug to prevail over economic necessity and refuses to value his prize pig, Wilbur, by processing and selling him on the open market. Presumably, the pig still dies eventually, only without profiting his owners. The farmer’s daughter, Fern, learns nothing except how to become an unsuccessful farmer. There is a rat in this movie. I quite liked the rat. He knew how to extract value from his environment. —Two stars.

At the New Yorker, of course (where she takes on a bunch more, among them”Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka” —that last she likes).

Note: This post is full of spoilers. On the off chance you have never read Charlotte’s Web, stop everything and go read it, then come back.

*

I just finished reading Charlotte’s Web aloud to my son, and was surprised how often I was choked up while reading it. I expected the final chapter to destroy me, but not so much in the middle chapters, even the quiet ones: Wilbur’s bucolic day-to-day existence and the charming banter of animals was as likely to make me swallow hard and take five (my son staring at me in confusion) as Wilbur learning his fate from the old sheep.

I think what gets to me is Charlotte’s and Wilbur’s platonic love. Maybe all great middle-grade books are essentially about friendship, but no friendship is more peculiar and perfect than Wilbur’s and Charlotte’s. All my childhood I waited for that little voice to whisper from the darkness that she was there for me, and would reveal herself in the morning.

But as I grow older, Charlotte is not the friend I aspire to have, but the friend I aspire to be. She reaches out to Wilbur when he is muddy and pathetic and hasn’t a friend in the world. Her friendship transforms Wilbur, just by holding up a mirror of her own admiration. Soon the whole barnyard is swept up by her enthusiasm. The old sheep and the geese and even the bratty lambs start treating Wilbur with more respect. In turn, Wilbur considers Charlotte’s myriad legs and plump gray body and bloodsucking lifestyle and pronounces her beautiful, an unshaken belief until the end.

It is Charlotte’s gesture of friendship upon which the entire book revolves. It is also the source of the inspiration for her own life-changing art.

*

I was actually less weepy at the end than I expected, perhaps because the boy was so squirmy and distracting (while also steadfastly insisting I keep reading). He was so blank-faced when Charlotte died I had to make sure he understood what just happened (he did). He was impatient through the next passages, but delighted by the baby spiders, and so eager to announce we were finished he missed the lovely “true friend and good writer,” bit at the very end. It was hard to be emotional with such an impatient audience.

However, there is one sentence I was unable to read. I saw it, knew I couldn’t read it, and simply turned the page. It’s the last sentence in the second-to-last chapter, and may be the saddest line ever to appear in a book for children. I won’t even put it here. It’s no better typing it than reading it aloud.

*

Perhaps the most curious aspect of Charlotte’s Web is that it never once mentions God, which leads to some confusion about the plot: why is Wilbur, and not Charlotte, the subject of praise and wonder? In an increasingly secular world, the disposition of rural folk to attribute the unknown to the hand of God is less and less obvious.

Mrs. Zuckerman more than once suggests that the spider is the real phenomenon, but her husband dismisses her. It’s just a plain old gray spider, he says. Mr. Zuckerman uses words like “wonder” and “miracle” to describe what happens, and consults his minister, who gives a sermon, but nobody uses the G word. I suspect that it is because White, or perhaps Ursula Nordstrom, felt that they were perilously close to mocking faith itself, or would be seen as doing so. They played it safe by alluding to miracles and wonders without naming their presumptive Source.

White was a skeptic, but a devout worshiper of nature, and his masterpiece is a statement of faith: we don’t need a celestial creator; the spider is miracle enough. White picks up the Emerson strand of enlightened animism that runs through the American canon (especially poetry). It’s a faith but not a religion, and captures my own faith better than any religious text.

The doctor serves as White’s mouthpiece, giving his lecture to Fern’s mother, in a scene I had completely forgotten and will probably forget again. (It has no children in it, and no animals. It made my son restless.)

*

Charlotte’s Web is beloved by writers for its smooth rhythms and pastoral descriptions, its epic catalogs of the humdrum. Reading it aloud tuned my ears to its stylistic mastery. There’s a reason the award for best read-aloud books is named for White. The style subsumes the story at times, as White patiently reels off the signs of seasonal changes, for example, or gives an exhaustive, almost ostentatious, list of things to eat at a fair or the contents of a junk pile. A certain type of children’s book reviewer is inclined to say they are “too much for children,” these languorous passages, just as critics have opined since its publication that Charlotte’s Web is too sad for children, that the sadness is ill-matched with the humor, that White bungled by establishing Fern as a main character just to demote her in chapter three. White’s children’s books do have structural peculiarities, but so do Andersen’s fairy tales. They defy our critical apparatuses. Children gleefully read, love, and cry over the book anyway, decade after decade.

When authors appeal to all ages they are said to appeal to the childlike hearts of older readers, but I think White appeals to the old souls in children.

*

Charlotte is also a writer, of sorts: literally spinning words that shine in the morning sunlight, transforming the lives of the ones she cares most about. And so I aspire to be a friend like Charlotte, and also a writer like Charlotte, with her tireless commitment to high-minded goals and no longing for personal reward. I more often feel like Wilbur, tying an old string to his tail and leaping off of a manure pile. Perhaps it is only by disappearing into the woodwork that a writer can see his or work work become, to those staring in wonder, divine.

I have been reading Charlotte’s Web to my son. I began it on a bit of a whim, unsure if he was old enough, but he loves it — he was goofing off and naughty this evening, and promise of more chapters in the book about the pig turned him right around.

Anyway. Tonight, as Wilbur lay lonely and weeping in the rain, and as the voice of a friend called to him from the darkness, Byron sat up in bed and started guessing who it was. He thought it was the gander, which made no sense. He thought it was Fern. And when, in the next chapter, he saw who it was he said, in hush and awe:

A spider.

I cannot tell you how it was to re-experience that moment through him. I don’t even know if I experienced it; I think when I read this book for the first time I knew it would be about a spider. Also, I wasn’t as bug crazy as he is — if anything, if I was surprised by the voice from the shadows belonging to a spider, I was disappointed. But not Byron. He was thrilled, amazed, and delighted.

A spider.

His joy is my joy. And the joy carries with it a sense of gravity– knowing that this moment, like first steps and first words, is over in a heartbeat. Byron will never again reach chapter five not knowing that the voice belongs to Charlotte, a spider. He will never again, say in wonder: a spider.

Harry will get his letter from Hogwarts, and Ralph will ride his toy motorcycle, and who knows what else, but nothing will top that, ever.

I teach ESL to adults and have often used children’s books as educational tools with these students who are trying to master English. I’ve read picture books to lower level classes, but the year I taught Advanced Conversation, I knew I needed something different.

Having taught lower level classes, I can say that in comparison these students truly did have a good grasp of English but they needed help to get to the next level. While they certainly weren’t shy about talking, I realized that this group still needed listening practice. The books chosen for the class were good — providing conversation prompts and vocabulary exercises — but they were ordered without their audio components.

Despite signing up for the class and despite their very real need to practice listening to English, my students seemed to regard listening practice as a form of torture and would groan whenever that part of class  began. I wanted to increase their vocabulary and get them into a focused conversation about a story. I thought Charlotte’s Web would work and borrowed the audiobook from the library.

The characters, the plot, everything is masterfully done. And of course as a child I didn’t realize how many words were being defined within the story, sometimes by a character and sometimes through context.

I introduced the story and we did pre-reading exercises with some of the more challenging vocabulary before listening to each chapter, but the idea was for them to listen to and discuss the story. They were not thrilled.

After one or two audio-only sessions, I won a copy of the 60th anniversary edition of book, so the compromise was that they could pass the book around and they’d spend a little time reading along and some time just listening. They were surprisingly fair about it. The stronger students let the weaker students read along longer. After a few weeks one student had her husband get her a copy at the library so she could read along the entire time.

Once, during a pre-reading exercise, I told the students the chapter they’d hear was called “Explosion” and asked what they thought might explode. One of the younger students, a man in medical school whom I suspect was looking for a more action-packed story replied hopefully, “The pig?”

While there are no exploding pigs, life and death are major themes of the book. This book also depicts a slower, more agrarian lifestyle that fostered discussion because it is a way of life some of my students found familiar.

At the end of the book, the two male students had eyes shining with tears they held back. The women, on the other hand, were quiet and thoughtful but their eyes were dry.

One man affirmed that animals really do communicate with each other, even if we don’t understand them. The student who’d hope for Wilbur to explode said, “At first, I hated it…but it turned out to be a good story.”

The post Caught in Charlotte’s Web appeared first on The Horn Book.

Some weeks can go by without a single solitary interesting video in sight.  Other weeks, you drown in brilliance.  This week inclines far more towards the latter than the former.

I could not lead off today with anything other than the latest bit of Bookie Woogie brilliance.  You keened to their 90-second rendition of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.  You hooted to their Black Cauldron encapsulation.  And you had to rewire your jaw after it smashed to the floor after seeing their Frog and Toad Together video.  Now behold the wonder that is . . . Charlotte’s Web!!!

Charlotte’s Web / Spider-Man Mashup (Bookie Woogie) from Z-Dad on Vimeo.

Naturally this was created for James Kennedy’s 90-Second Newbery Film Festival.  Those of you in the Chicago area will want to reserve your (free) seats for the February 1st screening here.  If nothing else I urge you to check out the posters that Aaron Zenz created in conjunction with this.

Aw, shoot.  I know for a fact I never put THIS 90-Second Newbery video up either (you see what happens when you try to post just one?).  This is my favorite, bar none, version of The Giver. If I were a producer on a comedy show I would hire this kid NOW NOW NOW.

From this awesomeness we now turn to the ultimate delight.  Self-deprecation.  Marc Tyler Nobleman had a brilliant notion.  He was watching Jimmy Kimmel Live! and saw the bit where celebrities read insulting tweets about themselves.  It gave him an idea – what if children’s authors did the same with bad Amazon reviews?  Though my temptation is to post all three videos here, I’m going to be a good pooky and only post one.  If you would like to see the other two (which are just as good and feature just loads of famous folks) go to Marc’s blog right here.  Here’s part one:

In book trailer news, or rather live-action book trailer news, Lorie Ann Grover’s YA novel Firstborn is coming out and the trailer looks pretty darn strong.  To the point, well shot, the works.  Love the brevity of it.  Well played, folks.

If you like your trailers a little more nonfiction picture booky, try on for size this one for Patricia Hruby Powell’s Josephine about you-know-who:

Will Strunk in the house but don’t call me junior
Grammatical genius. Number one word groomer.
I teach English 8 at the school of Cornell
Choose your words carefully or I’ll put you through hell.

E.B. White on the mic, former student of Strunk
A story that flows is all I need to get crunk
Write for the New Yorker, papers marked up in scarlet
I spin webs with words like my name was Charlotte.

via brainpickings

Now this is really neat.  There’s a series called BOOKD through THINKR (apparently E’s are considered gauche these days) that will take a topic and really go into it with a panel of experts.  In this particular case the question is whether or not you should re-read Charlotte’s Web.  Author Bruce Coville and teacher/blogger/author Monica Edinger (amongst others) give their two cents.  Really nicely edited and shot, don’t you think?

In other news, I had no idea that the Royal Shakespeare Company had created a staged adaptation of The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban.  Hoban died just last year in 2012.  I feel a bit miffed that he didn’t get to see this.  Maybe he got a sneaky peak in some way.  At any rate, it look fantastic (love the ending on the second video).  I just wonder how they pulled off The Caws of Art.  I’ve two videos here for the same production.  Love them both for very different reasons.

Thanks to Stefan for the links!

Sometimes I like to step into an alternate universe where I grew up in the USSR and watched television like this version of The Hobbit.  Instead I grew up on the old Rankin & Bass version.  Which was better?  Um . . .

Thanks to Educating Alice for the link!

And kudos to The New York Times for this lovely Christoph Neimann illustrated video of an interview Sendak conducted with NPR.

When I die, let’s do that.  That would be fun.  Make a note of it.

And finally, for the off-topic part, gold gold goldy gold.  I don’t even know if you could label it “Off-Topic” since it involves a child reading.  Or rather, a three-year-old child “reading”.  I know it’s three minutes but I seriously sat down and watched the whole thing because it’s a fascinating case study in what words kids pick up on when they hear stories.  The “but then” particularly amuses.

Many thanks to Stephany Aulenback for sharing that.

The folk of @radical.media have an excellent series called BOOKD  on their  ThinkR youtube channel in which they consider “…game-changing books through the insights and opinions of engaging personalities.” Their latest segment features Charlotte’s Web and I am honored to be part of it.

A contemporary librarian noir starring folks I know?  Don’t mind if I do!  I had no idea that Sarah Murphy was such a fine actress but it surprises me not at all.  Written and co-directed by Joy Tomasko with co-direction, photography and post-production by Jon Dieringer and starring librarians and friends thereof, this film premiered at The Bell House in December 2011 during the Desk Set’s Biblio Noir, a fundraiser for Literacy for Incarcerated Teens (which I missed thanks to my new baby state).   Screened at Spectacle Theater in June 2012 it’s now available online.  Many thanks to Maria Falgoust for the link.

After that, let’s start the day off right with a book that is completely and utterly unavailable to us here in America.  Basically, this all boils down to a children’s graphic novel, blurbed by Shaun Tan himself, that we have not yet seen.  Tan says of it, “Reading this book is like being quietly ushered into another dimension by winged strangers, a place beyond the tread of normal earth-bound language. Ephemeral as a feather, timeless as a rock, and as true as both, Unforgotten is a magical experience.”  That would be Unforgotten by Tohby Riddle.  Here’s the trailer:

Thanks to Andrew Joyner for the link!

So this is fun. The Digital Shift recently came up with the Seven Top Trailers to Hook Kids on Books. Picking and choosing amongst them there’s a lot to enjoy here, but I’m particularly taken with this 60th Anniversary trailer for good old Charlotte’s Web (#1 on my Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll, doncha know). Observe:

Speaking of pigs, in comes the rather timely (how many Olympic-related fictional picture books are there this season?) Olympig via author Victoria Jamieson.  Much with the fun.

Finally, for our off-topicness, I think I’m going to go nerd on you and whip out a bit of Star Wars meets Goyte stuff.  I know you’ve probably already seen it, but it makes me happy.  See if you can hear the hidden Wookie howl.

#1 Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)
349 points

I’m sure this will be number one again, and for good reason. A magical barnyard that maintains its “barn”ness. Amazing stuff. – Heather Christensen

I know, I know it’s so predictable but I loved this book as a kid (despite having a terrible fear of spiders) and still love it as an adult. It has changed and grown with me – and isn’t that the testament of something that is truly great? As a kid I saw it as a book about friendship and now I see it is a book about loss. It’s deep stuff. And nothing is better than the audiobook read by E.B. White. I like to have it on in the background while I do mundane things like clean and fold laundry hoping that I will absorb some of his genius. – Sharon Ozimy

Because it has to be here. I adore this story of friendship and farm smells. Even if a child has never experienced farm life up close, they will immediately identify with Fern’s desire to rescue Wilber and put doll clothes on him. As a rule I am not drawn to talking animal books, but when it comes to geese with speech impediments I’m putty-utty in the masterful E. B. White’s hands. - DaNae Leu

My second grade teacher read this to our class in the 1960’s. This was my first experience with chapter book. I’ve read it again several times as a child and a teacher myself. – Dee Sypherd

The first chapter book that I read by myself and the first chapter book I read out aloud to my own boys. Timeless language, animal characters… lovely – Charlotte Burrows

A children’s book that has stood the test of time and never grows old. – Pam Coughlan

All of my boys have had this classic read aloud to them, then we watch the movie with popcorn and candy. It’s a rite of passage into the club of reading in our family. – Tess Alfonsin

I read this book for the first time during the summer between 3rd and 4th grades. It was then that I decided it was more interesting to lay in bed and read rather than watch cartoons. I was hooked from the very start, and I could barely put the book down long enough to eat or sleep. – The Sauls Family

Humble. Radiant. Terrific. Some Pig. – Hotspur Closser

I’ve never looked at a spider or a pig in quite the same way since. – DeAnn Okamura

” ‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

And here we reach the end of the Top 100 Children’s Novels poll results. I think what I’ve learned from redoing my old polls is that some books are so firmly entrenched in the public consciousness that it is impossible to conduct a poll of this sort and expect them to be anywhere but #1.  And you, Charlotte’s Web, you will always be number one to American children and adults everywhere.

The plot, as it appears in Anita Silvey’s Everything I Need to Know I Learned From a Children’s Book reads, “In Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte, a spider, serves as the main protagonists; Fern, a young girl, plays a supporting role.  Both females work to sve the life of Wilbur, the runt pig of the litter.  In fact, the reader learns to appreciate an entire group of talking animals and watch their interactions in the barn.  Than at the state fair, Charlotte asserts the power of the pen – in this case the words she weaves in her web.  With just seven words, she convinces everyone that Wilbur, “some pig,” is truly something special and must

Take Charlotte’s Web, Carl Hiassen’s Hoot, and toss in a dash of The Frog Prince, and what do you get?  The charming middle grade novel The Hop (Disney Hyperion 2012) by Sharelle Byars Moranville. The story begins with young Tad the toad:  The loamy tunnel had fallen around Tad during the long night of winter and padded him like a brown blanket.  But now the earth was stirring.  And even three feet down, the young hopper felt it.  Maybe it was the footsteps of people in the garden, or the deep, seepy drip of warm rain.  Maybe it was the chorus of spring peepers. But Tad’s winter slumber has been troubled by strange dreams, dreams that foretell the potential doom of his home, Toadville-by-Tumbledown.  He learns he must kiss the Queen of the Hop in order to save his home and his people.  But how can he find this Queen.  Tad reminds me a bit of Frodo–humble, fearful of the big wide world, and destined to go on a perilous quest. Enter Taylor, a girl who’s life has been turned upside down by her grandma’s chemotherapy and by the sale of the pond and acreage next to her grandma’s house.  Gone are her regular afternoons at grandma’s [...]

‘Charlotte’s Web’ tops the list of the 100 best books for kids (according to Scholastic’s Parent & Child magazine. Many of our favorites made the list, including the classics “Goodnight Moon” and “A Wrinkle In Time.” Did your... Read the rest of this post

This week I got a lovely package in the post - a whole heap of goodies that accompany the children's motivational book 'Why Am I Here?'. I illustrated and did the layout for the book in 2009 for Simon and Schuster bestselling author Matthew Kelly.

Author of several NY Times bestselling motivational books for adults and top class motivational speaker, this is Matthew's first book for children, published by his own publishing company: Beacon Publishing. Matthew is head of a phenomenal organization and the book itself has sold thousands already. To go along with the book his foundation has developed a whole teaching pack, including dolls, lesson plans, posters ... and I worked on the design  and layout of everything you see in the photo ... including the packing boxes and hang tags on Max the doll. It was great fun, and even more fun to see it all together like this ... I feel quite proud!

BibliOdyssey: Charlotte’s Web:

The original sketches by Garth Williams for EB White’s ‘Charlotte’s Web’ (1952) were sold by his Estate at auction in October. The collection sold for more than $750,000, including over $150,000 for the book’s cover design.

A smorgasbord of high-res scans of Williams’s original art.

What am I reading now? The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by K. DiCamillo
 
On Thursday, October 28, 2010, Scholastic launched You Are What You Read, a new social networking site for readers. The main focus of You Are What You Read is to both “celebrate those books that helped us discover who we are and who we can become.”

Users can log on through existing social media accounts, namely Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, LinkedIn and MySpace. Once users have logged on they have the chance to not only share the five books that made a difference in their lives but also connect with readers around the world through shared “Bookprints.” Daniel Radcliffe, Taylor Swift and Venus Williams are just a few of the more than 130 “Names You Know” who have shared their Bookprints.

In addition, You Are What You Read provides users with the opportunity to:

In the spirit of You Are What You Read and to get the ball rolling even further, here’s my Bookprint:

1. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

2. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

4. The Giver by Lois Lowry

5.