Charlotte's Web

Genre: Fantasy/Science Fiction
Author: E.B White
Illustrator: Garth Williams
Awards: Newberry Honor, Laura Ingalls Wilder Award
Grade level: 2nd-middle school

I absolutely love Charlotte's Web! I remember reading it when I was younger, and it is still one of my favorite books to this day! It is mainly about the friendship and love between a spider and a pig on a farm, and all the ups and downs that come between this friendship. Fern is the daughter of the farmer, and without her, Wilbur the pig wouldn't even be alive. In the end, Charlotte the spider passes of old age but leaves her children, and Wilbur becomes very close with them. None of them can replace Charlotte in Wilbur's heart, but Wilbur loves them just as much.

I would definitely use this book in my classroom. This book would be a great read-aloud for younger children who can't read this book on their own. It teaches great lessons about friendship and love. I think the appropriate grade level is so broad because it could be used as a read-aloud or it would be a great story for children to read through on their own and discuss it. An idea for this book in the classroom would be to have the students read through the book and create "book club" groups and have them talk about what they read in the book and what they enjoyed about it.