A Place at the Table @ Cafe au Play

no one was with her when she died

In preparation for the Cafe au Play Spring Book Fair at Barnes & Noble on March 8 & 9, featuring the ever-fabulous Fancy Nancy in her new incarnation, I'm posting book reviews over the next couple of weeks featuring books about insects and books about birthdays. It'll all make sense when you see the newest Fancy Nancy book.

Here's something that intrigues me: books about spiders are often books about death. Eileen Spinelli's picture book Sophie's Masterpiece, the story of a house spider whose artistic talents go largely unappreciated until she sets herself to the task of creating a gossamer blanket for a human baby, sees the full realization and appreciation of Sophie's talents only at the moment of her death. Likewise, Jenny Nimmo's The Snow Spider, for children 10 and older, involves a magical spider whose icy webs have the power to conjure up the spirits of the dead. But the best known spider in literature is undoubtedly Charlotte of Charlotte's Web.

Of course you've read Charlotte's Web. Maybe you don't own your own copy yet, or anymore. We read Charlotte's Web aloud again not long ago. It is one of the classics of U.S. children's literature in part because of the delicacy with which it handles the problems of social relationships: what it is to be alone and what it is to be a friend.

But more than ever before, it struck me on this reading as a profound introduction to American culture for children. The riffs on boxing (as Charlotte recounts the story of her cousin catching the fly), and on religion (when Mr. Arable goes to tell the minister about the miracle of the web), on the dreariness of scientific authority (when Dr. Dorian muses to Mrs. Arable about the likelihood of animal speech) and the canniness of observation (when Mrs. Zuckerman observes that it is Charlotte rather than Wilbur who is extraordinary), the peculiar combination of the comic and the lyric--all of these share some self-mocking quality that is intrinsic to the best of American culture, a refusal to take entirely seriously those things that we embrace, an awareness of their rootedness in a particular time and place.

My daughter claimed never to have heard it before, though I was sure I had already read it with her--and sure enough, there were passages that had her laughing, and saying, "Oh. I remember this part!" But there were things she had forgotten, too, big things--like the death of Charlotte.

"Last Day," the chapter in which she dies, makes it very clear that Charlotte will not survive--Charlotte herself says so. But rather than allow her death to become the focus of the chapter, White redirects the readers' attention to Wilbur's determination to do something for the friend he adores, and to the manner of her death: "No one was with her when she died." So the genius of this book, it seems to me, is that the death of the heroine is not the end of the story. And as a result, readers are allowed to grieve her death in the context of a life that goes on, in the context of the life she was so determined to save--in the context of Wilbur's life. The grief we feel is, therefore, the grief we feel for the loss of a beloved friend, not the grief and terror we may feel in the face of death itself. The specificity of Charlotte's death allows children to see that death is indeed a part of life, and that life goes on--not uncaringly or callously, but that it goes on nonetheless, and that we can continue to feel joy in it.

the very hungry caterpillar and the tiny seed

Coming to the book fair at Barnes and Noble on March 8th and 9th? In addition to our various performers, we'll be featuring some crafts revolving around flowers and caterpillars. And I'm beginning my series of book reviews today with some related titles you might look for while you're there.

First, a book for babies and toddlers. If you're a new parent, you might not yet know Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Carle is justly famous for his gorgeous illustrations, formed as collages from handpainted paper. But his stories are just as compelling. This is the story of a little caterpillar who eats and eats and eats until, at last, he is transformed into a butterfly. Like other great books for the littlest children, it works on many levels. The story itself, a kind of tall tale, as the little caterpillar eats increasingly unbelievable quantities of food, always pleases toddlers. The progress from the quiet darkness of the opening to the exciting brilliance of the ending makes for a great read. And the story is constructed so that talking about the days of the week and about numbers becomes an obvious preoccupation for those who love this story, (since on Monday, the caterpillar eats one apple, on Tuesday, two pears, and so on). Carle has written abut other insects, too, in The Very Quiet Cricket, The Very Busy Spider, The Very Clumsy Click Beetle, The Very Lonely Firefly, and The Grouchy Ladybug.

If you're going to get another Eric Carle book, because you already know and love him, or because you're growing beyond these books for the littlest readers, look for The Tiny Seed. It's the story of a seed blown by the wind into the path of many dangers. But by virtue of its size, it remains safe--safe from the hot sun, safe from the cold mountain, safe from the wet ocean and safe from the dry desert, safe from the hungry bird and the hungry mouse. Along with only three other seeds, it has the chance to sprout. But even now, their futures are uncertain. In the end, only the tiny seed grows--into a huge and beautiful sunflower, that itself produces many tiny seeds. Like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, this book fascinates children who are learning about metamorphoses, from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly, and from seed to sprout to flower to seed. And more importantly, it really resonates with children who are feeling their smallness in the world, because of the way in which it suggests that smallness can be strength.