Charlotte's Web

I was surfing Amazon.com looking for books that my 9 y/o daughter might enjoy this morning and I came across this review of Charlotte's Web.

This was my favorite book when I was about her age and I even named a stuffed animal "Wilbur." My Wilbur was a bear that had such short ears that it looked more like a hamster, but I loved him dearly, warts and all.

This review is just so touching and heartfelt, I had to share it.

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A spider upsets the bacon-makin', March 9, 2005

Reviewer:

Amanda Richards

I don't want you people getting all mushy, thinking this is a happy little children's story about loveable animals in a barn.

The character of the title is of course, a spider (you wouldn't expect any other creature to spin a web, now would you?). On closer examination, Charlotte is a rather big, hairy, spider - a barn spider, or garden orb web spider of the species Araneus Cavaticus. If I could show you a picture, you'd see that pretty as her web might be, and as good hearted as E. B. White makes her, she's quite horrid looking. Plus there's that whole capturing insects to drink their blood thing.

She starts out with the noble goal of saving the life of a little runty pig named Wilbur, and succeeds in making suckers out of the human population, obviously no geniuses themselves.

Then there's Fern, the little girl who makes like Pocahontas and stops her father from taking an axe to Wilbur just because he's a little stunted at birth. She remains a main character, considered slightly dotty, because she talks to the animals. She spends most of the story in the bottom of a barn, under the cow pens, next to the manure pile. Now there's a child destined to become a vet, or at least an animal psychiatrist.

The moral of the story is that if you want to eat ham or bacon, or bite into a nice juicy pork chop ever again, you'd better start getting rid of the spiders.

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My only comment is this:

I need her recipe for pork chops because the only way mine ever come out "juicy" is when they are smothered in gravy.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm... gravy.