E.B. White

Published in 1952

Why did you do this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”

“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that”

I love how, hidden in a “children’s book”, is such a profound message: that if we’re selfless, if we help others with no strings attached, we lift up our own lives.

I didn’t read Charlotte’s Web when I was a child. I was exposed to it during my first year of teaching when it was a required third-grade read-aloud book.

I loved it, and the above passage became an assignment: “Illustrate what you might do for others to lift up your life a trifle.”

Charlotte’s Web isn’t just a children’s book, and that assignment isn’t just for kids.