Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My first grade teacher, Mrs. Doscher, read this out loud to us in class, and I think it was the first time anyone read out loud to me as a kid. In my memory, it took us a few months to read it, chapter by slow chapter. I don't remember crying in class, but this book is still one of the saddest books for me.

As an adult though, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would the people in the book assume a pig was writing on a spiderweb? Wouldn't they rightfully assume it was the spider doing it?

Update from 2020: I'm rereading this to my kids and I realized I'm such a dummy! The farmer characters in the book thought God wrote in the Spiderweb! It totally took me 35 to get that. Maybe because I never really thought about the literature of miracles when I was younger. I have been humbled by my own stupidity. Haha.

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Here Is New York by E.B. White

Here Is New York by E.B. White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's interesting how similar New York still is- in the generalities if not in the specifics. Beautiful essay.

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Stuart Little by E.B. White

Stuart Little by E.B. White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I forgot that Stuart isn't actually a mouse. He's an extremely diminutive human born with a mouse-like appearance! The first half of the book is Stuart's young mouse-like adventures, but the second half of the book is about him venturing out into the world in a bit of a coming of age story. He's supposedly looking for a particular bird friend, but works as a substitute teacher, dates, drives a car, and generally talks and acts like an independent adult.

The book is a bit shorter than Charlotte's Web or The Trumpet of the Swan, but the vocabulary is difficult for a young kid and the ending is left unresolved.

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