Charlotte's Web
E.B. White (1952)
“A spider writes words in her web to save a pig — and in doing so, writes one of the most honest books about death ever published for children.”
Short Summary
Wilbur the pig is born the runt of the litter and saved from slaughter by eight-year-old Fern Arable, who raises him by hand. When Wilbur is sold to a neighboring farm, he faces a new threat: he will be butchered in December. His barn friend Charlotte A. Cavatica, a grey spider, saves him by weaving words into her web — SOME PIG, TERRIFIC, RADIANT, HUMBLE — making him famous enough that no one will kill a celebrity. Charlotte dies at the fair, alone, after laying her egg sac. Her children are born in the spring. Three stay. The cycle of the barn continues.
Detailed Summary
Fern Arable is eight years old when her father raises his ax over the runt of a new litter of pigs. She protests so fiercely — 'If I had been very small at birth, would you have killed me?' — that her father pauses, then hands her the piglet. Fern names him Wilbur and raises him on a bottle like an ...