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megankirby 's review for:
Charlotte's Web
by E.B. White
Simple and funny--two hallmarks of a good kids' book. My main complaints are 1) dialogue tags are often strange, i.e. Wilbur "screams" sentences all the time. Whenever it happens, it reads like a freshman creative writing student who thinks "said" is a bad verb. The rest of the writing is great, which make the bad tags especially jarring.
2) Fern gets a bad rap at the end! It reminds me a little bit of Susan in Narnia--Fern starts as a rowdy tomboy yelling about the injustice of pig slaughter, and in the end she abandons the farm for a boy. She's like 9 years old? I don't think there's anything wrong with letting a young girl grow up, but the way Fern's maturity completely removed her from the story rubbed me the wrong way. It's sad to consider young girls reading this "coming of age" as when you get interested in boys, you will abandon your interests and friends.
Still, I rate this book a 4, earning an extra star for Garth Williams' beautiful drawings.
2) Fern gets a bad rap at the end! It reminds me a little bit of Susan in Narnia--Fern starts as a rowdy tomboy yelling about the injustice of pig slaughter, and in the end she abandons the farm for a boy. She's like 9 years old? I don't think there's anything wrong with letting a young girl grow up, but the way Fern's maturity completely removed her from the story rubbed me the wrong way. It's sad to consider young girls reading this "coming of age" as when you get interested in boys, you will abandon your interests and friends.
Still, I rate this book a 4, earning an extra star for Garth Williams' beautiful drawings.