Who was E. B. White?
Were you a child in the last 60 years?
Ever heard of Charlotte’s Web?
Yeah. He wrote that.
With polish, panache, and great skill–as befitted the White in Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.
Some Writer! by Melissa Sweet, is the title of some biography that I thoroughly enjoyed.
And it was written with a tween audience in mind!
(Tweens are kids between the ages of 9 and 13).
What makes this biography different?
An accomplished children’s author, Sweet is an artist as well, and she used interested techniques in this wonderfully illustrated biography.
Melissa Sweet’s biography provides historic E. B. White photographs, clever illustrations of his life, and a panoply of collages, drawings, and photographs mixed in.
(Chapter numbers look like the numbers typed on a manual typewriter, for example.)
Absolutely charming and so interesting to examine and pair episodes or interests from White’s life with the physical objects either drawn or photographed.
The story of Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
E. B. White already had a successful writing career in New York City, when he moved to a farm in Maine.
White loved to spend time in the outdoors, sailing on the lake, and watching the animals in his barn. His New England life provided many ideas for his children’s books.
Charlotte’s Web grew out of his fascination one year with a barn spider–and also the concern of a pig who needed to be saved.
It took him three years to write it–Some Writer tells the tale.
In commenting on how long it took him to write his three books for children, White said,
“I would rather wait a year than publish a bad children’s book, as I have too much respect for children.”
What about Strunk and White’s Elements of Style?
White took a writing class from Professor William Strunk while studying at Cornell University in the first decade of the twentieth century.
From Strunk, a writer White admired, he learned how to write good copy.
Years later after Strunk’s death, he was asked to revise his famous writing guide.
It’s now in the fourth printing.
Who would have imagined Wilbur’s creator taught everyone else how to write?
How have both books by E. B. White affected my life?
As a writer, I took away insights from Elements of Style and applied them to my own work. These include:
- Form the possessive singular of nouns with ‘s.
- Use the active voice.
- Omit needless words.
- In summaries, keep to one tense.
- Make definite assertions.
- Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-commital language!
- And particularly: Revising is part of editing!
As to Charlotte’s Web–well, who can kill a spider after knowing Charlotte?
(Wikimedia Commons)
I’m not so much a fan of Stuart Little or The Trumpet of the Swan.
I laughed at the the New York Public Library chief children’s librarian reaction to Stuart Little:
“I was never so disappointed in a book in my life.” She [Anne Carroll Moore] wrote an urgent fourteen-page letter to the Whites explaining why Stuary Little, with its “monstrous birth,” should not be published.
Not only was the story “out of hand,” . . . How could a mouse be born to humans? “The two worlds are all mixed up.”
Some Writer!
Even as a ten-year-old, I felt the same way.
But, reflecting, yet again on Charlotte, well:
“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”
Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you, E. B. White.
Tweetables
Some Writer! and the true story of Charlotte’s Web. Click to Tweet
What type of man wrote Charlotte’s Web? Click to Tweet
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