E. B. White first recognized the magic in words when he was very young. As a child, some of his happiest hours were spent finding just the right words to describe his feelings and experiences. After graduating from college, he took a job with a new magazine called The New Yorker. The magazine's readers soon began to look forward to the poetry and essays written by E. B. White. His writing was clear and lively with no wasted words, and it could make people laugh as easily as it could make them cry. In 1936, White and his family moved to a little farm near the coast of Maine, complete with sheep, chickens, and pigs. It was there that E. B. White wrote Charlotte's Web, perhaps one of the most beloved children's books ever written.
An entry in the Creative Minds series, this book offers none of nonfiction's usual garnishments--neither index, introduction nor bibliography. So readers will have no way of knowing just how Collins strung together these few facts of White's life, nor how much of it is true. It is all treated as truth, even pure speculation: "When his mother read the essay he wrote about her garden, her eyes filled with tears." This is enjoyable from cover to cover, but many will want to know the source of these stories--White's journal, or friends, or even other biographies. Ages 8-11.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.