ABSTRACT
Re-reading and thinking about E.B. White’s books for children during a year’s recent stay in the United States brought people in contact with the extraordinary place his work occupies in that part of children’s cultural experience that is shared with adults. Charlotte's Web is a book people remember having listened to in school, and these recollections include the class’s tears over Charlotte's death. The most dramatic events of the story happen when it is revealed that Wilbur is soon to be killed for ham and bacon by Mr. Zuckerman. The story centers on its depiction of the great love and sacrifice of self required of ‘mother’ to bring up Wilbur, the baby, particularly when the baby is a runt, an especially vulnerable baby needing extra-special care to survive. In E.B. White’s two other children’s stories, The Trumpet of the Swan, and Stuart Little, unusual difficulties are also overcome by special qualities.
