Book Description
As a child, E.B. White loved animals and writing. He did well in school and received a prize for his poetry when he was 14. But his successes did little to stop his anxieties and fears. He was afraid of the future. He was terrified of speaking in public. When White first worked as a newspaper reporter, his worries seemed justified. He got lost on his way to an important assignment and struggled to understand people on the telephone. He quit newspapers and it was unclear what he would do to support himself. But White persevered. He kept writing and discovered a magazine that published the type of writing he enjoyed. He focused on humor, poetry and commentary. He became more confident in himself and wrote Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan. The boy who loved animals and writing became a beloved national literary treasure.


About the Author
Rebecca Thatcher Murcia graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1986 and worked as a newspaper reporter in Texas for 12 years. She is a writer, soccer coach and some-time Spanish teacher in Akron, Pennsylvania. Upon receiving this assignment, Murcia dusted off the same 1952 copy of Charlotte’s Web her mother had read to her when she was a child. She enjoyed reading the book to her own sons, who are seven and nine.