Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White (our reviews)

Calvin is a good reader. That's not to say that he is reading yet, but that he loves to be read to, and both his attention span and his comprehension are top notch, so when I came across my old copy of Charlotte's Web earlier this week I decided to experiment with the great world of youth novels, or chapter books. I have been itching to delve into that world for some time now but wasn't exactly sure when the right time was. Apparently that time is now, or at least the moment has come and gone, because our week spent reading Charlotte's Web was an enormous success with the one person to whom it should matter (and I don't mean myself).

I had forgotten what a fantastic book Charlotte is—a beautiful meld of fantasy and the natural world, of childish fancy and mature language, of joy and poignancy. There's also a healthy dose of vocabulary building and even science buried right in the middle of a truly engaging story. I figured it would take us about a week to get through the book but as it turns out we could have finished it in just a couple of days, he was that excited about the story.

To check his comprehension I had him summarize the day's reading for his dad in the evening, and to make the book last a little longer I came up with a few side activities, like painting illustrations for the book, reading some books on spiders, and creating a color coded diagram of a standard spider, the latter being Calvin's favorite activity of the week, I think.

And I don't even have to type out Calvin's impressions and review on this book because his journaling has really grown by leaps and bounds. But I'll tell you what it says in case it's hard to read:

Charlotte's Webb
She saved Wilbur. Charlotte dies. Her babies are born.

The picture is a map of the fair, straight out of Calvin's imagination. The pink thing is a pig, Wilbur, and also visible are the spider, Charlotte, the little girl, Fern, and the brown shape is the loud speaker they use at the fair.