the annotated charlotte's web

Everyone should read Charlotte's Web, preferably as a child. And then once they grow up, they should read this book:

The Annotated Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White
with introduction and notes by Peter F. Neumeyer

I have never had so much fun re-reading the children's classic I first plowed through as a second-grader. This story of friendship, of the pastoral beauty of the farm, of miracles and salvation, and of the circle of birth, life, and death is only made more beautiful and more striking by the comments poignantly and intelligently made by Neumeyer. His annotations allow readers to "obtain insights into the craftsmanship of a highly conscious and self-aware artist, and gain an appreciation for the difficulties of writing beautiful prose fiction."

E. B. White is my kind of writer. His "sense of style [is] demanding." He went to great lengths to see that no paragraph, no sentence, no word, no minute piece of punctuation was wasted. And just like his words, every character, too, was molded with great care and precision. How fun it was to sneak a peek into the world of White's drafts and revisions, to read his notes and see his sketches, to be witness to his writing process. It was refreshingly pleasant to see that my own painstaking way of writing is in very good company.

And speaking of writing, reading this book rekindled that desire deep inside me to write and publish for children. Not an easy task, and certainly not one to be taken lightly. An accomplished author in the adult world, White obviously also excelled at writing for young readers. He once wrote that, "anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly." With a focus like this, White (and, it could also be said, Charlotte, his literary spider) is certainly one whose example I'd like to emulate.

I will be honest: I cried while reading again this story of a pig and a spider. What a triumph it is -- for White, for Wilber, for Charlotte. While simple in appearance, the tale is instead deeply profound and moving. It truly was White's magnum opus. It truly was "terrific."

"Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."
-- final paragraph in Charlotte's Web