Charlotte's Web

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Charlotte's Web
ISBN
9780062658753

Charlotte's Web is a book of

Harper & Brothers. The novel tells the story of a livestock pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered
by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages in her web praising Wilbur, such as "Some Pig" and "Humble", to persuade the farmer to let him live.

Charlotte's Web is considered a classic of children's literature, enjoyed by readers of all ages.[1] The description of the experience of swinging on a rope swing at the farm is an often-cited example of rhythm in writing, as the pace of the sentences reflects the motion of the swing. In 2000, Publishers Weekly listed the book as the best-selling children's paperback of all time.[2]

Charlotte's Web was adapted into an

Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions in 1973. Paramount released a direct-to-video sequel, Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure, in the US in 2003 (Universal released the film internationally). A live-action feature film version of E. B. White's original story was released in 2006. A video game based on this adaptation
was also released in 2006.

Plot summary

After a little girl named Fern Arable pleads for the life of the runt of a litter of piglets, her father gives her the pig to nurture, and she names him Wilbur. She treats him as a pet, but a month later, Wilbur is no longer small and is sold to Fern's uncle, Homer Zuckerman. In Zuckerman's barnyard, Wilbur yearns for companionship but is snubbed by the other animals. He is befriended by a barn spider named Charlotte, whose web sits in a doorway overlooking Wilbur's enclosure. When Wilbur discovers that he is being raised for slaughter, she promises to find a way to save his life. Fern often sits on a stool, listening to the animals' conversation, but over the course of the story, as she starts to mature, she begins to find other interests.

As the summer passes, Charlotte ponders how to save Wilbur and comes up with a plan. Reasoning that Zuckerman would not kill a famous pig, Charlotte weaves words and short phrases in praise of Wilbur into her web. Charlotte weaves the words Some Pig into the web, and the next morning, the farmhand Lurvy sees the web and runs to find Mr. Zuckerman. This makes Wilbur, and the barn as a whole, into tourist attractions, because many people believe the web to be a miracle. After the excitement dies down, Charlotte weaves the word Terrific into her web, beginning the cycle anew. To maintain the public's interest in Wilbur, Charlotte then tells Templeton, a barn rat, to get another word for the web. He goes to the dump and finds a laundry detergent ad with the word radiant, which she then weaves into her web. Fern's mother starts to get worried that Fern is spending too much time around the animals because she is telling her mother stories about the animals talking. Mrs. Arable then goes to visit Dr. Dorian, who persuades her that being among animals is natural and likely therapeutic for Fern.

Wilbur is eventually entered into the county fair, and Charlotte, as well as Templeton, accompany him. He fails to win the blue ribbon but is awarded a special prize by the judges. Charlotte weaves the last word into her web, Humble. Charlotte hears the presentation of the award over the public address system and realizes that the prize means Zuckerman will cherish Wilbur for as long as the pig lives and will never slaughter him for his meat. However, Charlotte, being a barn spider with a naturally short lifespan, is already dying of natural causes by the time the award is announced. Knowing that she has saved Wilbur, and satisfied with the outcome of her life, she does not return to the barn with Wilbur and Templeton and instead remains at the fairgrounds to die. However, she allows Wilbur to take with him her egg sac, from which her children will hatch in the spring. Meanwhile, Fern, who has matured significantly since the beginning of the novel, loses interest in Wilbur and starts paying more attention to boys her age. She misses most of the fair's events in order to go on the Ferris wheel with Henry Fussy, one of her classmates.

Wilbur waits out the winter, a winter he would not have survived but for Charlotte. He is initially delighted when Charlotte's children hatch but is later devastated when most leave the barn. There are only three remaining spiders. Pleased at finding new friends, Wilbur names one of them Nellie, while the remaining two name themselves Joy and Aranea. Further generations of spiders keep Wilbur company in subsequent years.

Characters

Themes

Death

flies throughout the novel, White makes the concept of death normal for Wilbur and for the readers.[5] Neither Wilbur nor the rat Templeton see death as a part of their lives; Templeton sees it only as something that will happen at some time in the distant future, while Wilbur views it as the end of everything.[6]

Wilbur constantly has death on his mind at night when he is worrying over whether or not he will be slaughtered.

realities of death. From the novel, readers learn that death can be delayed but that no one can avoid it forever.[9]

Change

For Norton D. Kinghorn, Charlotte's web also acts as a signifier of

childhood closer to adulthood throughout the novel.[9] This is evidenced by Wilbur accepting death and Fern giving up her dolls. Wilbur grows throughout the novel, allowing him to become the caretaker of Charlotte's children just as she was a caretaker for him, as is explained by scholar Sue Misheff.[10] But rather than accept the changes that are forced upon them, according to Sophie Mills, the characters aim to go beyond the limits of change.[7]
In a different way, Wilbur goes through a change when he switches locations. Amy Ratelle explains that when he moves from Fern's house to Homer Zuckerman's farm, Wilbur goes from being a loved pet to a farm animal.

Innocence

Fern, the little girl in the novel, goes from being a child to being more of an adult. As she experiences this change, Kinghorn notes that it can also be considered a fall from innocence.[4] Wilbur also starts out young and innocent at the beginning of the novel. A comparison is drawn between the innocence and youth of Fern and Wilbur. Sophie Mills states that the two characters can identify with one another.[7] Both Wilbur and Fern are, at first, horrified by the realization that life must end; however, by the end of the novel, both characters learn to accept that, eventually, everything must die.[9] According to Matthew Scully, the novel presents the difference in the worldview of adults versus the worldview of children. Children, such as Fern, believe killing another for food is wrong, while adults have been gradually conditioned to believe that it is natural.[11]

History

Charlotte's Web was published three years after White began writing it.[12] White's editor Ursula Nordstrom said that one day in 1952, E. B. White arrived at her office and handed her a new manuscript, the only copy of Charlotte's Web then in existence, which she read soon after and enjoyed.[13] Charlotte's Web was released on October 15, 1952.[14][15][16]

In light of White's Death of a Pig, published in 1948,[17] which gives an account of his own failure to save a sick pig (bought for butchering), Charlotte's Web can be seen as White's attempt "to save his pig in retrospect".[18] White's overall motivation for the book has not been revealed, and he once wrote: "I haven't told why I wrote the book, but I haven't told you why I sneeze, either. A book is a sneeze."[19]

When White met the spider who originally inspired Charlotte, he called her Charlotte Epeira (after Epeira sclopetaria, the Grey Cross spider, now known as Larinioides sclopetarius), before discovering that the more modern name for that genus was Aranea.[20] In the novel, Charlotte gives her full name as "Charlotte A. Cavatica", revealing her as a barn spider, an orb-weaver with the scientific name Araneus cavaticus.[citation needed]

The arachnid anatomical terms (mentioned in the beginning of chapter nine) and other information that White used, came mostly from American Spiders by Willis J. Gertsch and The Spider Book by John Henry Comstock, both of which combine a sense of poetry with scientific fact.[21] White incorporated details from Comstock's accounts of baby spiders, most notably the "flight" of the young spiders on silken parachutes.[21] White sent Gertsch's book to illustrator Garth Williams.[22] Williams's initial drawings depicted a spider with a woman's face, and White suggested that he simply draw a realistic spider instead.[23]

White originally opened the novel with an introduction of Wilbur and the barnyard (which later became the third chapter) but decided to begin the novel by introducing Fern and her family on the first page.[22] White's publishers were at one point concerned with the book's ending and tried to get White to change it.[24]

Charlotte's Web has become White's most famous book, but White treasured his privacy and that of the farmyard and barn that helped inspire the novel, which have been kept off limits to the public according to his wishes.[25]

Reception

Charlotte's Web was generally well-reviewed when it was released. In The New York Times, Eudora Welty wrote: "As a piece of work it is just about perfect, and just about magical in the way it is done."[26]

Aside from its paperback sales, Charlotte's Web is 78th on the all-time bestselling hardback book list. According to publicity for the 2006 film adaptation (see below), the book has sold more than 45 million copies and been translated into 23 languages. It was a

Newbery Honor book for 1953, losing to Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark for the medal.[citation needed
]

In 1970, White won the

Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, a major prize in the field of children's literature, for Charlotte's Web, along with his first children's book, Stuart Little (1945).[citation needed
]

Seth Lerer, in his book Children's Literature, finds that Charlotte represents female authorship and creativity, and compares her to other female characters in children's literature such as Jo March in Little Women and Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden.[27] Nancy Larrick brings to attention the "startling note of realism" in the opening line, "Where's Papa going with that Ax?"[28]

Illustrator Henry Cole expressed his deep childhood appreciation of the characters and story, and calls Garth Williams's illustrations full of "sensitivity, warmth, humor, and intelligence."[29] Illustrator Diana Cain Bluthenthal states that Williams's illustrations inspired and influenced her.[30]

An unabridged audio book read by White himself reappeared decades after it had originally been recorded.[31] Newsweek writes that White reads the story "without artifice and with a mellow charm," and that "White also has a plangency that will make you weep, so don't listen (at least, not to the sad parts) while driving."[31] Joe Berk, president of Pathway Sound, had recorded Charlotte's Web with White in White's neighbor's house in Maine (which Berk describes as an especially memorable experience) and released the book in LP.[32] From Michael Sims: "The producer later said that it took him 17 takes to read the death scene of Charlotte. And finally, they would walk outside, and E.B. White would go, this is ridiculous, a grown man crying over the death of an imaginary insect. And then, he would go in and start crying again when he got to that moment."[33] Bantam released Charlotte's Web alongside Stuart Little on CD in 1991, digitally remastered, having acquired the two of them for rather a large amount.[32]

In 2005, a school teacher in California conceived of a project for her class in which they would send out hundreds of drawings of spiders (each representing Charlotte's child Aranea going out into the world so that she can return and tell Wilbur of what she has seen) with accompanying letters; they ended up visiting a large number of parks, monuments, and museums, and were hosted by and/or prompted responses from celebrities and politicians such as John Travolta and then-First Lady Laura Bush.[34]

In 2003, Charlotte's Web was listed at number 170 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's 200 "best-loved novels."[35] A 2004 study found that Charlotte's Web was a common read-aloud book for third-graders in schools in San Diego County, California.[36] Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children."[37] It was one of the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.[38]

In 2010, the New York Public Library reported that Charlotte's Web was the sixth most borrowed book in the library's history.[39]

Its awards and nominations include:

Adaptations

Film

The book was adapted

Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions with a score by the Sherman Brothers. In 2003, a direct-to-video sequel to that film, Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure, was released by Paramount Pictures
.

In 2006, Paramount Pictures, with Walden Media, Kerner Entertainment Company, and Nickelodeon Movies, produced a live-action adaptation, starring Dakota Fanning as Fern and Julia Roberts as the voice of Charlotte, released on December 15, 2006.

Scrapped television miniseries

On March 8, 2022, it was announced that Sesame Workshop was working on an animated miniseries based on the book.[44] It was in production for a few months, and was slated to premiere in 2024 on Cartoon Network and HBO Max.[45] On November 3, 2022, it was announced that the miniseries would not be moving forward.[46]

Stage

A musical production was created with music and lyrics by Charles Strouse.[47]

  • Tricycle Productions (Montreal, Canada) produced a touring version of Charlotte's Web in 1996 with arrangements of Strouse's score by Canadian composer Derek Aasland.

Video game

A

Blast! Entertainment
.

Ebook

On March 17, 2015, HarperCollins Children's Books released an ebook version.[49]

See also

References

  1. ^ Neto, Bill (April 19, 2021). "Fiction Genres". eBooks Discounts. Archived from the original on 2021-04-19. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  2. ^ "Paperback". Factmonster.com. Retrieved 2014-05-25.
  3. ^ Block, Melissa (August 4, 2008). "Charlotte A. Cavatica: Bloodthirsty, Wise And True". NPR. Retrieved 2010-09-26.
  4. ^
    S2CID 144850869
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  5. .
  6. .
  7. ^ .
  8. .
  9. ^ a b c Jordan, Anne Devereaux (1997). "Appreciating 'Charlotte's Web'". Teaching and Learning Literature with Children and Young Adults. 7.
  10. S2CID 159809077
    .
  11. ^ Scully, Matthew (June 2011). "Tangled Web; A Children's Classic, and the Moral Dimensions of Animal Farming. (The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic)". The Weekly Standard. 16.
  12. ^ White, E. B. (2006). "Authors & illustrators: E. B. White: AUTHOR NOTE: A Letter from E. B. White". harpercollinschildrens.com. HarperCollins Publishers. Archived from the original on 2009-02-14. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
  13. ^ Nordstrom, Ursula (May 12, 1974). "Stuart, Wilbur, Charlotte: A Tale of Tales". The New York Times. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
  14. ^ "Charlotte's Web". Virginia Kirkus' Bookshop Service (New York, New York). October 1, 1952.
  15. ^ "Books—Authors". The New York Times. October 4, 1952. p. 15
  16. ^ "Books Published Today". The New York Times. October 15, 1952. p. 29.
  17. ^ White, E.B. (January 1948). "Death of a Pig". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 30, 2011.
  18. ^ Weales, Gerald (May 24, 1970). "The Designs of E. B. White". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-22.
  19. ^ Usher, Shaun (2013-08-02). "A book is a sneeze". Letters of Note. Archived from the original on 2013-08-06. Retrieved 2013-08-06.
  20. .
  21. ^ .
  22. ^ a b Elledge (1984), p. 295.
  23. .
  24. ^ White (1976), p. 351.
  25. ^ Garfield, Henry (May 2007). "E.B. White's Web". Bangor-Metro. Archived from the original on 2009-01-13. Retrieved 2009-06-17.
  26. ^ Welty, Eudora (1952-10-19). "Along Came a Spider". The New York Times.
  27. .
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  32. ^ .
  33. ^ "NPR – Weaving 'Charlotte's Web"
  34. ^ Worldly Web: A traveling spider teaches fourth graders the joys of reading, meeting new people, and experiencing new adventures.[permanent dead link] Reader's Digest 2007-06-13, page found 2012-11-13.
  35. ^ "BBC – The Big Read". BBC. April 2003, Retrieved August 28, 2017
  36. doi:10.1598/rt.58.1.1. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on December 7, 2013. Retrieved August 19, 2012.
  37. ^ National Education Association (2007). "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". Retrieved August 19, 2012.
  38. ^ Bird, Elizabeth (July 7, 2012). "Top 100 Chapter Book Poll Results". School Library Journal "A Fuse #8 Production" blog. Archived from the original on July 13, 2012. Retrieved August 19, 2012.
  39. ^ Carlson, Jen (January 13, 2020). "These Are the NYPL's Top Check Outs OF ALL TIME - Gothamist". Archived from the original on 2020-01-13. Retrieved 2020-01-13.
  40. ^ "Charlotte's Web | Awards & Grants". American Library Association. Archived from the original on 2021-04-19. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  41. ^ "Horn Book Fanfare 1952". The Horn Book Magazine. December 5, 1952. Archived from the original on 2021-04-19. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  42. ^ "Complete list of MCBA Winners by Year". Archived from the original on 2018-08-03. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  43. .
  44. ^ Milligan, Mercedes (2022-03-08). "WarnerMedia Expands Sesame Workshop Partnership with New Titles and Fresh Takes". Animation Magazine. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  45. ^ White, Peter (2022-03-22). "'Charlotte's Web': Luke Matheny To Oversee HBO Max & Sesame Workshop Series". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  46. ^ Flint, Joe (November 2, 2022). "Warner Bros. Discovery Marriage Hurt by High Debt, Low Morale". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  47. OCLC 232955846
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  48. ^ Charlotte's Web, retrieved 2022-09-01
  49. ^ "Charlotte's Web". HarperCollins. Archived from the original on 2020-09-27. Retrieved April 19, 2021.

Sources

External links