Customer Reviews
charlotte's web 
2008-04-26
Love this story. Use it for students who are in a reading group but have a hard time keeping up with the reading. Great for reading groups.
Own this just for E.B. White's narration 2007-12-02
One prominently placed negative review here suggests that E.B. White's narration ruins an otherwise good story. I could not disagree more. Somewhere in the trunk of my car is a well-worn audiocassette version of Charlotte's Web, and I came to Amazon.com to see if it was available on CD. Luckily, it is. It is hard to put into words why I really like E.B. White's narration so much, but I would strongly urge anyone considering this purchase to go for it. His slight New York accent is a refreshing change from so many other audiobooks of children's stories, often read by a young woman, such that they often all sound alike.
Classic Book 2007-10-22
I bought this book for my 6 year old daughter. She LOVED it! Its was a great chapter starter book for her. This was a good way to make sure she was truly understanding what she was reading. It engaged her she really enjoyed the story. Afterwards we watched the movie =) GREAT BOOK!
All Time Classic 2007-10-03
This is a timeless coming of age story and an all time classic good read. Farmgirl Fern saves the pig Wilbur, the runt of the litter. She raises him like one of the family as much as possible. Wilbur is horrified, afraid and lonely when he's sold to Fern's uncle. To help him through this difficult time, Charlotte the spider becomes his friend and undertakes the writing challenges of her life when she spins words into her web to help save Wilbur's life. Meanwhile, Fern is growing up, becoming interested in boys and spending less time with Wilbur. Wilbur is taken to compete at the county fair and Charlotte goes along, even though it's the twilight of her life. She gives her all for Wilbur at the fair and in return, Wilbur saves her egg sac and takes it back to the farm with him upon her death. The next spring the little spiders hatch and begin to leave and Wilbur, who desperately misses Charlotte, believes he's destined to be alone. However, three of Charlotte's offspring decide to stay at the farm with Wilbur, insuring that he will have friends in the future. Wilbur welcomes them to the farm and tells the baby spiders about their mother and her legacy.
Along with the main characters, there's a cast of additional farm animals that help move the story along. It's good read for kids, and I've reread it as an adult. I liked it just as much then as the first time I read it. So will you.
Life Lessons 2007-09-30
What a great book. One of the themes of this work is the reality of death. The author approaches this topic with the delicacy required for the young audience.
Wilbur is faced with possibility of an early demise because he is the runt of his litter. His wise and caring friend, Charlotte, devises a plan to save his life and though it works, she looses her life in the end.
The book is much more than this theme alone, but it is the most salient and captivating.
Charlotte's Web 2008-06-18
Great book!! It was for my college class book review. I read it to my daughter and we both enjoyed it.
Great Friends 2008-05-12
Tracy M Griffin
May 10, 2008
Literature Review
Title: "Charlotte's Web"
Author: E.B. White
Publisher: HarperCollins 1952
Pages: 192
Genre: Children's
Reading Level: 4.9
Lexile: 680
Synopsis of the Plot: "Charlotte's Web" is an endearing story about the friendship between animals and humans to save the life of a pig. Wilber was born to a litter as the runt; Fern, a young girl who had a great love for animals, immediately took him in. Fern was a child that had the gift of speaking to the animals. Wilber lived on a farm that belonged to Fern's uncle, so she could see him and the other farm animals a great deal. The other animals grew to be a large part of Wilber's life, especially Wilber's friend Charlotte.
Wilber met his good friend Charlotte in the barn. Her first words to Wilber came at a time of need for Wilber. Charlotte was a calm and collected spider. She always had words of wisdom to Wilber, and had the ability to ease his always-tense self. Charlotte would later become a lifesaver for her great friend Wilber.
When Wilber grew to know his surroundings a fear started that he was going to be slaughtered. Wilber was so worried and insecure about his life he would fall faint a great deal and always be in a tizzy. Wilber expressed his concern to everyone in the barn a great deal. His best friend Charlotte decided to take a stance for her friend and help him get through this time. Charlotte used her skill of weaving beautiful webs to show the family that owned the farm how great Wilber really was.
Negative Aspects of the Book: As I have read this book many times I feel that the content now does not fit the reading level. My students in first grade really enjoyed this book being read to them. However, currently the sixth graders at my school are reading this book and I do not see them enjoying the book as much as my young students do.
Personal Appraisal: This book was a joy to read with my students! It gave them a clean and deep meaning of friendship and helping out people that we care about. The language was very appropriate for any child to read.
This book helps students realize how much friends can really help out each other. The relationship between Charlotte and Wilber is one that many children can relate to. My students in my class found the way Charlotte was so calm and endearing to be somewhat of a mom to Wilber. That was so interesting that they came away with it, I never thought of it that way, I always saw Charlotte as just a friend. This book shows that there are many interpretations that can be made through literature.
The most worthwhile part of this book is the friendships that exist between Wilber and all his friends. His friends show him how great of a pig he really is. Fern's love for Wilber, even though he was the runt of the litter, shows students that no matter the size or makeup of someone they still are great!
Great Friendship! 2008-05-12
Tracy M Griffin
May 10, 2008
Literature Review
Title: "Charlotte's Web"
Author: E.B. White
Publisher: HarperCollins 1952
Pages: 192
Genre: Children's
Reading Level: 4.9
Lexile: 680
Synopsis of the Plot: "Charlotte's Web" is an endearing story about the friendship between animals and humans to save the life of a pig. Wilber was born to a litter as the runt; Fern, a young girl who had a great love for animals, immediately took him in. Fern was a child that had the gift of speaking to the animals. Wilbur lived on a farm that belonged to Fern's uncle, so she could see him and the other farm animals a great deal. The other animals grew to be a large part of Wilbur's life, especially Wilbur's friend Charlotte.
Wilber met his good friend Charlotte in the barn. Her first words to Wilber came at a time of need for Wilbur. Charlotte was a calm and collected spider. She always had words of wisdom to Wilbur, and had the ability to ease his always-tense self. Charlotte would later become a lifesaver for her great friend Wilbur.
When Wilber grew to know his surroundings a fear started that he was going to be slaughtered. Wilbur was so worried and insecure about his life he would fall faint a great deal and always be in a tizzy. Wilbur expressed his concern to everyone in the barn a great deal. His best friend Charlotte decided to take a stance for her friend and help him get through this time. Charlotte used her skill of weaving beautiful webs to show the family that owned the farm how great Wilbur really was.
Negative Aspects of the Book: As I have read this book many times I feel that the content now does not fit the reading level. My students in first grade really enjoyed this book being read to them. However, currently the sixth graders at my school are reading this book and I do not see them enjoying the book as much as my young students do.
Personal Appraisal: This book was a joy to read with my students! It gave them a clean and deep meaning of friendship and helping out people that we care about. The language was very appropriate for any child to read.
This book helps students realize how much friends can really help out each other. The relationship between Charlotte and Wilbur is one that many children can relate to. My students in my class found the way Charlotte was so calm and endearing to be somewhat of a mom to Wilbur. That was so interesting that they came away with it, I never thought of it that way, I always saw Charlotte as just a friend. This book shows that there are many interpretations that can be made through literature.
The most worthwhile part of this book is the friendships that exist between Wilbur and all his friends. His friends show him how great of a pig he really is. Fern's love for Wilbur, even though he was the runt of the litter, shows students that no matter the size or makeup of someone they still are great!
Children's Classic 2008-05-11
I don't care what weird opinions you have on talking animals (frankly, I can't stand a lot of them, either). But Charlotte's Web is a fable about friendship told properly fable-ish through the voices of animals and a little girl who are thrown together in an effort to keep a pig from certain doom. Yes, it's cutesy, but it is for children and they love it. The animals all have their separate personalites and I have personally seen adult books that can't have the characterization of these. It's a great, timeless story.
My three year old's favorite novel. 2008-05-02
I'm sharing this review with the intention of being particularly helpful to parents of toddlers and preschoolers. I found that having a very young child with the attention span to sit through chapters of a novel left me scrambling a bit to find novels that were appropriate in theme and content for her age. I am reviewing each novel we have read or tried in the hopes of being helpful to other parents in the same situation.
Charlotte's Web by EB White was the second novel we read, and we selected it for two reasons. First, it was already on our bookshelf, and second, an area park was planning to host the live-action movie, projected outside for a picnic-under-the-stars movie experience. I thought the second sounded really fun, and having seen the live action version, I thought my daughter would really enjoy it.
It was a bit of a gamble starting this one primarily because it tackles the concept of death, and a young three year old might not handle that well. But, knowing her as I do, I decided to try it on, and see how she responded. I decided that I'm not opposed to altering the story if I felt it necessary. Though I'm generally opposed to censorship, I feel this is fine, as I do not intend to keep ideas from her, merely gauge when she is ready for them. Regarding death, I felt that to some extent she had already been exposed to insect death, and that animal death is a natural extension of that idea. So, after noting the possible red-flags this novel brought with it, we began reading.
My daughter fell in love with this story. She considers it Fern's story, which I find interesting. The novel begins with Fern, and she is Wilbur's first advocate. I think she liked the idea of a pig all wrapped up in a baby blanket, in a doll's carriage, drinking milk from a bottle. I think she liked to experience being a caregiver vicariously through Fern. I saw confusion and shock flash across her face during the early scene when Fern rescued Wilbur from an early death. I think to some extent, Fern won my daughter's devotion in that early scene. Like Fern, the idea that this baby pig should be killed because it was small, was not only foreign but definitely wrong. It was neat to see her draw that conclusion, and empathize with a character on the basis of emotion and moral righteousness. In that passage, I knew we'd done right to select this book, and that it gave her the gift of literature in a way that previous reading hadn't. It gave her books as a vehicle for examining ideas and drawing conclusions, as a means of experiencing difficult situations without actually having to live them.
She very much enjoyed the antics of Charlotte, Wilbur, and Templeton. She was a quiet listener, so that often times I wondered if she was fully engaged, and was surprised to find upon questioning that she was definitely fully with me. I was surprised by how well she kept with the story, not growing bored when we covered long passages about the wind blowing through the trees and the seasons changing on the the farm. I'd have predicted that she would need the clever antics to keep her interest up, but she was a rapt audience for the entirety of the book.
In the end, we took Charlotte's death on headlong, not editing or softening the blow. I felt the whole book had prepared for it, and to leave it out or soften it in the end would have made the preparation excessive. White was very wise in his handling of the story. It is very much an introduction to the idea of death, and he puts out early the idea that Wilbur may die, an idea his audience is not equipped to handle. Still, he prepares the audience for it, never lying. Never promising that it won't become a reality, presenting hope alongside the reality of death, and leaving the reader to know that those are what we have: the certainty of ultimate death, and hope in the face of it. And I love that he didn't chicken out. He didn't give us Wilbur, the victor over death and a means to avoid dealing with death as a certainty. He gave us Wilbur, saved from the slaughterhouse and free to live as full a life as any of us. And he gave us Charlotte, whose complete life came to it's natural end in this book. In doing so, he asks the reader to explore the idea of death and of the life-cycle, without giving them a free-pass. He is honest about it, and I respect that. He recognized that children weren't ready to say good-bye to Wilbur, and most especially not at the hand of humans and not by choice, but that he had prepared them for the idea of death and a natural death could be more easily accepted and understood. And so, Charlotte dies, and Wilbur lives to die another day, and my daughter begins to explore this idea and to decide for herself what it means to have a life.
Lots of questions accompanied this book, and followed it. Why do the people want to kill Wilbur? Why do we eat animals? Why does Charlotte not want Wilbur to die? Why did the farmer decide not to kill Wilbur? Why did Charlotte die? Do people also die? Will I die? Will you die when I die? What will happen after I die? When will I die? When will you die? Are Charlotte's babies sad because they don't have a mommy? And so on. And they are all important questions and I thank EB White for giving them to my daughter in such a gentle and loving way and allowing us to experience them together.
