Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web was published by Harper & Brothers in October 1952, written by E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams, and it has stayed in print in one form or another ever since. White wrote three children's novels, of which this is the second; he was also a New Yorker essayist and the author of the style manual with William Strunk that students still argue about. Publishers Weekly put the book at the top of its list of best-selling children's paperbacks in 2000, which is a sales fact rather than a judgement.

The story belongs to a working farm where the animals talk and the humans mostly do not hear them. Wilbur is the pig whose life depends on somebody else's persuasion; Charlotte is the spider who takes on that work, using the fact that people will believe a sign that appears in a web. Fern is the child who saves Wilbur first, and the novel quietly measures her childhood against the seasons of the farm. The other farm animals, from the goose to the rat Templeton, supply the practical and selfish opinions that Charlotte has to work around.

White wrote the story partly from the Maine farm where he lived, and the barn, the seasons and the chores in the book are drawn from that life. The novel was made into an animated film in 1973, a live-action film in 2006 and a new miniseries in 2025. It is short enough to read in an evening, and it is the rare children's book whose central subject is a friend deciding what she is for.