While we were there, I picked up a hardcover copy of Charlotte's Web for our collection. I hope it will be a favorite classic, pulled from our bookshelf often. It had a foreword in it from Kate DiCamillo that was so lovely I needed to copy it down somewhere. That somewhere, today, was here. I wanted to copy the whole thing...but that felt too much like plagiarism. So, an excerpt:
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"Every word of Charlotte's Web bears the full weight of White's love for the people, seasons, animals, and arachnids of this world. And every world of the book shows us how we can bear the triumphs and despairs, the wonders and the heartbreaks, the small and large glories and tragedies of being here.
We can bear it all by loving it all.
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...Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur- this lovely world, these precious days...
This is Charlotte's promise to Wilbur.
It is also E.B. White's promise to his reader: things will continue; life will go on. It will be beautiful, astonishing, heartbreaking. And as long as you keep your eyes and heart open to the wonder of it, as long as you love, it will be okay."
-excerpt from Kate DiCamillo's foreword for Charlotte's Web by E.B White
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This is a lovely world. Precious days. And they are mine to enjoy...so long as I keep my eyes and heart open to the wonder of it.
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