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.
