I am presently rereading E. B. White’s novel
Charlotte’s Web
with my youngest child, who is eight
.
She is much enjoying this classic tale about the pig Wilbur and his friendship with the spider Charlotte, who hatches a clever plan to save him from the butcher’s knife. I don’t remember how old I was when I first read the book, but it is one of the earliest novels I can remember reading, maybe the first. Upon this rereading, I have realized that it marked me as strongly as it did because one of its major themes—indeed, the central one—is death.