The Story of Charlotte's Web

The childhood classic book, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White just turned 60. You can hear about it on this NPR story. Here is a photo of Michael Sims' book about the creation of the story along with my own childhood copy of the book. I got this book at a Scholastic book fair at my elementary school when it cost 75 cents. You can see how much I have loved this book over the years. When my mom finished reading the book to me the first time, I remember crying.

Of course I would want to read a book about the creation of such a powerful piece of literature. I liked and didn't like this The Story of Charlotte's Web. It takes about 100 or so pages to get going, and if you want to read a biography of the young life of E. B. White, then this is your book. I didn't really care about all of the minutia in the early part of the book (girls he had crushes on, etc.), but I did enjoy the core of the book when it got to the actual creation of this work.

If I were the editor of this book, I would have drastically condensed the first part of the book and had Sims expand upon the creation of Stuart Little even more and then also, The Trumpet of the Swan which is a mere side thought at the end.