A few weeks ago, I graduated from law school. (Yay!) It was a two day affair, and the second day we had to get up at 5:00 in the morning for a full day of ceremonies. So the day after everything, I gave up on any possibility of studying for the bar and just lay in bed and listened to three quick audiobooks: Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White, Stuart Little by E. B. White, and James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. Coincidently, these were the three books my mom read to us when we were little kids.
No, it isn’t lost on me that I spent the day after graduation listening to all the books my mom read to me when I was three. Personally I think it’s kind of cute.
Also, my mom is a way better narrator than any of the audiobook narrators, and that includes E. B. White himself.
Also, I didn’t realize how much these books are still part of my life. I still think the capital of Pennsylvania is Wilbur, for example, and when anyone in my family is reading something out loud, whenever we say chapter one, it’s always followed by “In the Drink” (a messed up version of the first chapter of Stuart Little).
I don’t have a ton to say about any of these three books, so I’m putting them all together into one post.
Charlotte’s Web
This book was just delightful. Just as delightful as it was when I was a little kid.
It’s about a young pig, Wilbur, whose rescued by a girl named Fern and then grows up in a barn full of other animals, and all these animals, especially the spider Charlotte, pitch in to help keep Wilbur alive.
There are so many things I loved about this book, both as a child and now rereading it as a newly minted law school graduate. The book ages well. It can be enjoyed by all ages (or maybe I’m just a child at heart). It also doesn’t talk down to kids, throwing out words like “injustice” and “radiant” and “humble,” which I certainly didn’t know when I was five-ish. Actually, Charlotte’s Web is probably how I learned those words. I still equate humility with Wilbur (just like the capital of Pennsylvania).
All the characters and little episodic adventures were just such fun, too. Everybody had their own personalities, and you can see how they all grew and changed over the course of the story.
The only thing that bothered me about this book was how Fern stops caring so much about Wilbur and the other animals toward the end. I get the point is that she’s growing up, but the fact that Wilbur’s life is in danger and she just runs off to ride the ferris wheel with a boy really bugged me.
When my mom first read this to us, I was about five, and my two-year-old brother colored all over the ending, so we never finished it. I picked it up myself some time later and read it on my own to finish it, but I still didn’t remember the ending and was totally surprised when I got there this time around. But on the whole, I think it worked.
I really loved revisiting this book and these characters. If you haven’t read Charlotte’s Web, you need to. If you haven’t read it in a while, it’s definitely worth a revisit.
Stuart Little
Stuart Little is about a mouse born into a human family living in New York City and his adventures growing up.
I didn’t enjoy Stuart Little as much. I liked a lot of the little vignettes in the book, but on the whole, it didn’t feel very cohesive. It was very episodic, and there was a lot of slapstick comedy kind of adventures, but there was very little overall plot, and it ended very suddenly with no resolution. Unfortunately, I remembered it better than it was and I’m sorry I now can’t remember it the way I did before.
James and the Giant Peach
This was a wild book. Very characteristic Roald Dahl craziness. After his parents are eaten by a rhinoceros, James is sent to live with his awful abusive aunts. Then an old man gives James some magical green things that he’s supposed to mix into a potion and it will help him stand up to his aunts. But before he can make the potion himself, he falls over and spills the green things, and the next thing you know there’s a peach the size of a house and a bunch of giant bugs living in the pit. James joins them, and they take the giant peach on a wild adventure. They battle sharks and seagulls and cloud men as they cross the ocean to America.
I never saw the movie, but I’ve heard it was terrifying, and I believe it.
It was a crazy book, but it was a ton of fun, and I absolutely loved it.
So that’s it. If you’re looking to revisit some classic kid lit books, I’d definitely go back to Charlotte’s Web and James and the Giant Peach. Stuart Little was fun but on the whole not as strong of a story in my opinion, but to each their own. So tell me, what books did you read as a little kid that still hold up today?