Podcast
On Being with Krista Tippett
It was mentioned as a book that kids often read and re-read, despite knowing how it ends. The speaker's friend described it as a story about bearing the truth, about finding out that one can bear terrible things.
Have you ever asked an auditorium full of kids if they know and love Charlotte's Web? In my experience, almost all the hands go up and if you ask them how many of them cried when they read it, most of...
— Episode: [Unedited] Kate DiCamillo with Krista Ti...
Episode: [Unedited] Kate DiCamillo with Krista Tippett
It was mentioned as a book that kids often read and re-read, despite knowing how it ends. The speaker's friend described it as a story about bearing the truth, about finding out that one can bear terrible things.
Have you ever asked an auditorium full of kids if they know and love Charlotte's Web? In my experience, almost all the hands go up and if you ask them how many of them cried when they read it, most of those hands unabashedly stay aloft.
My childhood best friend read Charlotte's Web over and over again as a kid. She would read the last page, turn the book over, and begin again. A few years ago I asked her why. What was it that made you read and reread that book, I asked her? Did you think that if you read it again things would turn out differently, better, that Charlotte wouldn't die?
No, she said it wasn't that. I kept reading it not because I wanted it to turn out differently or thought that it would turn out differently but because I knew for a fact that it wasn't going to turn out differently. I knew that a terrible thing was going to happen and I also knew that it was going to be okay somehow.
I thought that I couldn't bear it but then when I read it again it was all so beautiful and I found out that I could bear it. That was what the story told me. That was what I needed to hear, that I could bear it somehow.
These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you ever.