The first time I read Charlotte’s Web, I was six. My first grade teacher had pointed it out to me in the Scholastic Book order form, and when I begged my mom to order it, she smiled, disappeared for a few minutes, and returned with a worn hardback she had been saving for me. I grinned and headed straight for my favorite wingback chair in the living room.
I don’t know how long it took me to read it, but one evening not too much later, my mother found me in the same chair sniffling and wiping away tears. I had had no idea that a book could have anything but a happy ending—Charlotte’s death was just too much to bear. It was the first time I had been utterly transported by reading. I must have read it half a dozen times over the next few years—my own effort to resurrect my friend Charlotte. I could recite the first three lines from memory.
Almost thirty years later, my four-year-old daughter picked up the animated video of Charlotte’s Web at the library and wanted to check it out. I couldn’t stand the idea of having her see it on screen before reading the book, so I promised to read it to her instead.
Over the next few weeks, I read a chapter to her each night at bedtime. I had forgotten (or had I taken for granted?) how eloquent the prose was and how unsentimental the message. Just like old times, (and much to my daughter’s puzzlement), I blubbered through the last two chapters.
Charlotte’s Web is a book about friendship, about wonder, and about the power of the written word. When I was a little girl, I was hooked from the first line: ”Where’s Papa going with that ax?” I worried about that sweet pig and hoped desperately that Charlotte would save him. But now, it’s not the first sentence, but the last that stays with me: “It’s not often in life that someone comes along who is a true friend and a great writer. Charlotte was both.” Indeed.
Wilbur may have made me a reader, but it was Charlotte who made me a writer.
I am a Christian. A real, Christ following, Bible Reading, Praise singing Christian. I acknowledge Jesus as my Savior, and try to live by God’s power in the day to day life He has given me. I also have many moments where I am a fallen, sinful wreck of a person. I make mistakes, hurt people unintentionally, get jealous and prideful and say things that I shouldn’t. So….I understand why people can be put off by Christians sometimes. I understand that the church is not always what it should be (and by church I mean those that claim to have faith in Christ). I realize that many Christian leaders have begged you for your time, money and votes only to turn around and disappoint you with some adulterous scandal moments later. I get that Christians are not always involved in righting the injustices of the world. I realize that we sometimes have double standards, seem overly critical and judgmental and boycott too loud at some of the most inappropriate times.
