Fiction Friday (114)

 

I don't always review the books here that I've read with my daughter, but when they're novels, I tend to...and thankfully she's that age now where I can read longer stories to her over the course of a few weeks. Our latest read-aloud was a book that I hadn't read since childhood, but from the movie, I know inside and out. It was a pleasure to revisit this story with her. She is currently referring to it as her favorite book.

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

(Harper, 1952)

Friendships, especially those we make when we are young, are some of the most special bonds we can make. Wilbur, the lovable pig from E.B. White's story, makes two very special connections when he's a piglet. The first is Fern, the girl who first saves his life by protesting that a runt doesn't deserve to die simply because he is small. She serves as his mother, until he is big enough to live on her uncle's farm. That's when he meets Charlotte, he first real friend.

Everyone knows the plot of this story, knows how Charlotte's cleverness saves Wilbur from the slaughterhouse by spinning words into her web. And the story is memorable, very well defined and well written, but it's the theme of friendship that makes this book so very special. It demonstrates to young children how we rely on the support of our friends, and how true friends are willing to go the extra step to help. It also deals with loss in a profound and age appropriate way, and more importantly, illustrates the cycle of life and healing that is to come when some one close passes on.

There are some timeless tales that are considered timeless for a reason, and this is certainly one of them. Though it was written almost 70 years ago, it doesn't feel dated.

Movie Monday...Some Pig or Just Some Pig.

I waited eight years to see the live action version of Charlotte's Web. I missed it in the theater, and then back when I still used Netflix, I refused to use up a rental on it figuring that a movie like this would be on television a million times. That prediction turned out to be very wrong. Periodically I would search the guide to see if it was airing and was shocked that even as recently as last year, it was still only showing on premium channels. Then around Christmastime I was even more shocked to see it was available on demand...for a fee!! That's unheard of for a movie that came out in 2006. Then a few weeks ago, it finally aired on Nickelodeon and I was able to record it. 

Having now watched it, I can say without a doubt that it was not worth an eight year wait. It wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't a great one either. The CGI was fantastic though. It was like Babe but with a decade of technological advancements. Wilbur was adorable, and Charlotte was portrayed with class. As in the animated version, Templeton steals the show, voiced brilliantly here by Steve Buscemi. Despite how great the animals looked, the rest of the movie has a too-vibrant Norman Rockwell aesthetic that I found off-putting, and the human characters felt completely flat, even the talented Dakota Fanning could do very little to make the human interaction feel realistic.

The attempt here was make a truly "safe" family movie, and in those regards I would call it a success. But with such powerful source material, they could have made more of an effort to make a movie that would hold some value for adults. But perhaps my biggest problem with the film version was the treatment of Charlotte's death. It felt very glossed over, not only in screen time, but also in Wilbur's acceptance of it. Even now, so many years after the book was published, Charlotte's Web, and Disney's Bambi film, are still the two main ways where children encounter death in way that imparts on them the sadness and meaning behind it. This movie should have set out to uphold that tradition. 

All in all, it was entertaining and a solid okay. Granted I'm aware that I'm not the target audience and that young children would probably thoroughly enjoy the film. But as a children's book writer, I strongly believe that children's entertainment should strive to be more than passing entertainment that is easily digestible and quickly forgotten. Charlotte deserves more, and so does Wilbur.