Charlott's Web: Read Aloud Thursday (and a Giveaway)

One of the joys of raising children is the opportunity to revisit our own precious childhood moments.  As Easton is now six and Kiana is five, I've been introducing them to some beloved chapter books of my childhood.  We've already read The Boxcar Children this year and finished E.B. White's delightful Charlotte's Web just this week.

We've always read stacks and stacks of picture books, but have just started reading chapter books to them in the last few months and I want to be more diligent in always having a chapter book going.  Kiana calls these books "ones that you put a bookmark in" and the children nightly clamor for "just one more chapter, one more chapter!"

I would imagine everyone knows the storyline as Wilbur the pig, the runt of the litter, is loved and nourished by Fern until he's growing quite nicely.  When he learns he is likely being fattened for the slaughter, his salvation comes from an unlikely source, Charlotte the spider, who astonishes humans with the unexplainable appearance of flattering words stitched into her web above Wilbur's stall.

I love the vocabulary in this book.  White commonly uses words that today's authors simply don't employ when writing children's books.  In the current climate of "dumbing down our kids", modern authors write down to children, using words they already know rather than challenging and educating them.  White is especially skilled at including a parenthetical definition so that readers can decipher the meaning of a word in the context of the story.  Words including untenable, sedentary, gullible, versatile, distinguish, ascended, detected, languishing, trickled, gnawed, garrulous, provender, writing, idiosyncrasy, delectable. . .these are just a few of the rich words that bring the characters to life and make Charlotte's Web the classic it is.

As my five year old just asked me "has my new book arrived yet?" and my two year old told me "I'm finished with my sucker" I contemplated their use of these more sophisticated word choices over "is my new book here" and "I'm done".  I'm so thankful for books introducing the richness of our English vocabulary to my children!

My favorite passage this reading was the description of Templeton the rat.

The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything.  He would kill a gosling if he could get away with it--the goose knew that.  Everybody knew it. (46)

What a great commentary on how our character determines our reputation! 

This book was a hit with our family and I couldn't resist picking up another copy I found at a thrift store for one of you.  To win, simply leave a comment and a way for me to contact you in the comment section below before next Thursday.

I'm linking up for the first time with Amy as we're incorporating more reading of chapter books with our "littles".  If you have any recommendations of this caliber, please do share them with me.