Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White

Oh my word how I loved this book.  From the “Where’s papa going with that axe?” to the bittersweet ending.  I probably read this book 4,000 times.  And really, has there ever been a better first line?

Ahh, I could wax nostalgic about this all day.  This is one of those books that I remember reading to the end then flipping back to the beginning and starting again.  And again. So, so good.

Maybe it was Fern and how much I wanted to be her, maybe it was the idea of these animals having a life of their own, or just the pure old sweetness that was the friendship between Wilber and Charlotte.  I can’t peg exactly why this book moved me so much, but it did. Oh, it did.  The trip to the fair, Fern’s crush on Henry, the messages in the web, the geese, the scene where they’re washing Wilber with buttermilk…. seriously, great stuff.

In fact, when I was a little bit older, I was still clinging to this idea of having a pet pig.  I wanted, like Fern to push it around in a stroller and dress it up and love on it.  I was seriously 16 years old.  For my birthday, my mom took me to the next town, to a pig farm, and let me pick out my very own pig. I picked out the pinkest one and we turned out of our outbuildings into a pig stall.  I would go out to the stall and sing to it and sit with it after school.  It was my very own Wilber (although I  named mine George). I always looked around for spider or rat friends, but never saw any.  Dang. He was still “Some Pig.”

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