Charlotte's Web
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the Read-to-Me, Read-by-Me stage.
Why it fits Read-to-Me, Read-by-Me (for the kindergarten-ready set, between being read to and reading alone)
Some Pig. The first great read-aloud novel: friendship, loss, and the barnyard's whole turning year. Children meet big themes held safely in a parent's voice. The gold standard, permanently.
What makes it special
White wrote the great American read-aloud: friendship, mortality, and the turning barnyard year in prose that never talks down. Garth Williams' pencil illustrations are so definitive that no one has dared replace them. A child who hears this at six carries 'some pig' and its lessons for life.
From the publisher
Charlotte's Web is a book of children's literature by American author E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams; it was published on October 15, 1952, by Harper & Brothers. The novel tells the story of a livestock…
About E.B. White
E.B. White (1899–1985) was The New Yorker's defining essayist and co-author of The Elements of Style — and, in three children's books, the writer who proved a child's novel could be literature. Charlotte's Web won a Newbery Honor and everyone's heart.
White kept animals on his Maine farm and wrote Charlotte's Web after watching a spider spin an egg sac in his barn doorway — he carried the sac to his desk when he moved back to New York, and the spiderlings hatched among his papers.
Also by this author: Stuart Little · The Trumpet of the Swan
More from “Chapter One, Together”
This book is part of The Best Books for Beginning Readers: 30 Teacher Picks (Read-to-Me, Read-by-Me) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.