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=== Fern Arable ===
=== Fern Arable ===
Fern is the courageous girl who saves the runt.
Fern is the courageous girl who saves the runt. She is about eight in the book.


== Reception ==
== Reception ==

Revision as of 01:10, 13 January 2009

For other uses, see Charlotte's Web (disambiguation).
Charlotte's Web
Book cover
AuthorE. B. White
IllustratorGarth Williams
LanguageEnglish
GenreChildren's
PublisherHarperCollins
Publication date
1952
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages192 pp
ISBNISBN 0-06-028298-3 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

Charlotte's Web is a children's book by acclaimed American author E. B. White. First published in 1952, it tells the story of a barn spider named Charlotte and her friendship with a pig named Wilbur. The book was illustrated by Garth Williams. Publishers Weekly listed the book as the best-selling children's paperback of all time as of 2000.[1] Written in White's dry, low-key manner, Charlotte's Web is considered a classic of children's literature, enjoyable to adults as well as children. 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.

Plot summary

The book begins when John Arable's sow gives birth to a litter of piglets, and Mr. Arable discovers one of them is a runt and decides to kill it. However, his eight year old daughter Fern begs him to let it live. Therefore her father gives it to Fern as a pet, and she names the piglet Wilbur. Wilbur is hyperactive and always exploring new things. He lives with Fern for a few weeks and then is sold to her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. Although Fern visits him at the Zuckermans' farm as often as she can, Wilbur gets lonelier day after day. Eventually, a warm and soothing voice tells him that she is going to be his friend. The next day, he wakes up and meets his new friend, Charlotte: the grey spider . Wilbur soon becomes a member of the community of animals who live in the cellar of Zuckerman's barn. When the old sheep in the barn cellar tells Wilbur that he is going to be killed and eaten at Christmas, he turns to Charlotte for help. Charlotte has the idea of writing words in her web extolling Wilbur's excellence ("some pig", "terrific", "radiant", and eventally "humble"), reasoning that if she can make Wilbur sufficiently famous, he will not be killed. Thanks to Charlotte's efforts, Wilbur not only lives, but goes to the county fair with Charlotte and wins a prize. Due to the short lifespan of spiders, Charlotte dies at the fair. Wilbur repays Charlotte by bringing home with him the sac of eggs (her "magnum opus") she had laid at the fair before dying. When Charlotte's eggs hatch at Zuckerman's farm, most of them leave to make their own lives elsewhere, except for three: Joy, Aranea, Nellie, who remain there as friends to Wilbur.

Background

White's editor Ursula Nordstrom said that one day, in 1952, E.B. White handed her a new manuscript out of the blue, the only version of Charlotte's web then in existence, which she read soon after and was hugely impressed with.[2]

Since E. B. White published Death of a Pig in 1948, an account of how he failed to save a sick pig (which had been bought inorder to be fattened up and butchered), Charlotte’s Web can be seen as White attempting "to save his pig in retrospect."[3]

Characters

Wilbur the pig

Wilbur is curious and sad to leave Fern at first, yet adapts to the environment and life in the barn. However, he now faces the threat of being eaten for Christmas.

Charlotte A. Cavatica

Charlotte is the spider that saves Wilbur from being butchered by weaving her talents into her spider webs. She seems very blood-thirsty and hideous to the other animals at first, but then proves them wrong by saving Wilbur.

Templeton the Rat

Templeton is the character that refers to himself as "the rat". In spite of being a glutton, he helps out Wilbur and Charlotte just for the sake of it.

Fern Arable

Fern is the courageous girl who saves the runt. She is about eight in the book.

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."[4] 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 Honors book for 1953, losing to Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark for the medal. 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, published in 1945.

Maria Nikolajeva (in her book The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature) calls the opening of the novel a failure, because, she states, the animals' story cannot be satisfactorily viewed as an allegory to human life because of the novel's begun and then abandoned human dimension.[5] 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’’.[6]

Film adaptations

1973 version

Main article: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

The book was adapted into an animated feature by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions in 1973 with a song score by the Sherman Brothers.

2003 sequel

Main article: Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure

This is the sequel to the 1973 film, released direct-to-video by Paramount Pictures.

2006 version

Main article: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

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

Trivia

  • Charlotte gives her full name as "Charlotte A. Cavatica", revealing her as a barn spider, an orb-weaver with the scientific name Araneus cavaticus.

Printed editions and ISBN numbers

  • ISBN 0060263857 (hardcover, 1952)
  • ISBN 0060263865 (library binding, 1952)
  • ISBN 0064400557 (paperback, 1974)
  • ISBN 0606026282 (prebound, 1980)
  • ISBN 0871292432 (paperback, 1983)
  • ISBN 0061070106 (paperback, 1990)
  • ISBN 1561376302 (hardcover, 1998)
  • ISBN 1561370266 (hardcover, 1999)
  • ISBN 1581180500 (library binding, 1999, Large Type Edition)
  • ISBN 0064410935 (paperback, 2001)
  • ISBN 0758701780 (hardcover, 2002)
  • ISBN 0060006986 (hardcover, 2002, 50th Anniversary Edition)
  • ISBN 0807283053 (paperback)

Titles in other languges

  • Notes: In Germany, the 1973 film is called Zuckermann's Farm - Wilbur im Glck. The 2006 film is called Schweinchen Wilbur und seine Freunde. Also, in Sweden, the 2006 film is called Min vהn Charlotte. The films of Charlotte's Web in French are called Le Petit monde de Charlotte, even though the book is called Le Toile de Charlotte.

References

  1. ^ http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0203050.html
  2. ^ Nordstrom, Ursula (1974-05-12). "Stuart, Wilbur, Charlotte: A Tale of Tales". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-22. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Weales, Gerald (1970-05-24). "The Designs of E. B. White". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-22. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ New York Times, October 19, 1952
  5. ^ Nikolajeva, Maria (2002). The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature. Scarecrow Press. pp. 55–56. ISBN 0-8108-4886-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ Lerer, Seth (2008). Children's Literature. University of Chicago press. pp. 249–251. ISBN 0-226-47300-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

See also

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