Time Magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time

It is more accurate to say that this is a list of Middle Grade and Young Adult books. Charlotte's Web is probably read by more third graders than high school sophomores. Then again, The Hunger Games, would be more appropriate for an older reader. Some of my favorite books are on this list including From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Invention of Hugo Cabret , Holes, A Wrinkle in Time, When You Reach Me, The Graveyard Book, Wonder, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime , Matilda and of course, The Sorcerer’s Stone (the first Harry Potter book).

NYPL Top Children’s Books of the Last 100 Years

The New York Public Library (NYPL) presented its first ever list of the Top Children’s Books of the Last 100 Years. Many of the books are no surprise: Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Some have been featured on this blog: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, Holes by Louis Sacher and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. There are books that I loved as a kid: Charlotte’s Web by E B White, Madeleine by Ludwig Bemelmans and The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien. A generation later my children loved: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. My grandchildren love: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J K Rowling .  Check out the  complete list at School Library Journal.

E.B. White Explains Why He Wrote Charlotte’s Web

A few weeks before Charlotte’s Web was published, E. B. White’s editor asked him about his inspiration for the book. You can read what he wrote here. It is exactly what I hoped he might have said as I listened to Mrs. Graham, my third grade teacher, read the book to our class.

 

Hat tip: Read Across America

That Book Sounds Familiar

This afternoon, I stumbled across a blog called theroommom. What attracted me was a post titled “That Book Sounds Familiar”. It pairs classics like Charlotte's Web with new books like The One and Only Ivan. You can read the post here. As a rabid Nancy Drew fan back in the olden days, I am excited to check out The Red Blazer Girls by Michael D. Beil to see how it stacks up. When I do, I’ll be sure to let you know how I liked it.

Happy Birthday Charlotte’s Web

Sixty years ago today, E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web was published. It quickly became a children’s favorite. Four years later, in a third grade class in Minneapolis, my teacher, Mrs.. Graham, started to read Charlotte’s Web to our class. At the end of the day, she read a chapter until she finished the book.  All forty (no small class sizes in those days) of us looked forward to the next chapter in Charlotte and Wilbur’s saga. We cried when Charlotte died. In the spring, Mrs.. Graham told us that since we were the best class she had ever taught, she would reward us by reading Charlotte’s Web to us again. Decades later, I had a chance to talk to her and found out that all her classes were the “best” and all her classes got two readings of E. B. White’s classic.

I read this book to my children a couple of decades later. They loved it too. In 1970,  E. B. White,  recorded an audio book. It took 17 takes for the author to read the passage about Charlotte’s death with out crying. This is a book that is as fresh today as it was in 1952. It is a story of love and friendship, life and death.

Today on NPR Morning Edition, there was a tribute to the book which includes a clip of E. B. White  reading Charlotte’s Web.

The Yulupa Library has two copies of this book and the Sonoma County Library has many copies. The county library also has Charlotte’s Web picture books.