Some Writer! : The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet

Some Writer! traces the life of Elwyn Brooks White, the author of the much loved children's storybooks, Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

White's own story began in 1899 in Mount Vernon, New York. White knew at an early age that he loved to write. He was the youngest child in a family of six children and spent many idyllic summers in Belgrade Lakes, Maine. His father rented several cottages at Snug Harbor and the family would travel to Maine every summer. During the summer White learned to canoe, and he spent time swimming in the lake and studying the things many young boys find fascinating: turtles, toads and tadpoles.

White began sending his writing in for publication at the age of nine! His poem, "A Story of a Little Mouse" won him his first literary prize. In high school White wrote for the school newspaper, the Oracle. Throughout White's teen years, World War I raged and he lamented about not being able to enlist (he did not meet the weight requirements).

White attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. There he was nicknamed Andy after the first president of Cornell by his classmates. He wrote for the Cornell Sun, eventually becoming editor. White worked as a counselor at Camp Otter located on Otter Lake near Dorset, Ontario during the summers of 1920 and 1921. Camp Otter was a summer camp for boys, owned by the director of physical education at Cornell. In the summer of 1921, he was accompanied by a friend Howard "Cush" Cushman.

In 1922, White along with Cushman traveled westward, across America, arriving in Seattle, Washington six months later. After a brief stint as a reporter for the Seattle Times, White headed to Alaska and Siberia and then returned home to New York. He lived with his parents for a time while working in advertising in Manhattan. Then in 1925, White began writing for a new magazine, The New Yorker. This was the real beginning of White's literary career.

White was a well-known writer and essayist when Anne Carroll Moore, a children's librarian at the New York Public Library wrote him suggesting he write a children's book. He decided to create a story out of his notes he had made years earlier of a dream about a mouse. While working as a writer at the New Yorker, White once experienced a dream when travelling on a train. The dream was about a dapper little mouse who wore a hat and carried a cane. He wrote down the details of the dream and over time added more chapters. It was this story E.B. White reworked and ultimately submitted to his new editor, Ursula Nordstrom at Harper and Brothers. While Ursula loved the story of Stuart Little, librarian Ann Carroll Moore did not. Although it was published in 1945, Stuart Little was not approved by some librarians and the book was even banned in some libraries. Children, however, loved the book.

But White's best was yet to come - inspired in part by life on his farm in Maine.

Discussion

Melissa Sweet has written a biography of E.B. White that is chockful of fascinating facts and insights about the author of one of the best books ever written for children. Some Writer! is a visually appealing book, filled with maps, photographs, artwork and collages created by Melissa Sweet. Also  included are much archival information: photographs of E.B.White, copies of his journal pages, poetry, correspondence and drafts of his work for Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web, as well as photographs of his wife and son and his farm.

Although most of White's writing was for adults, he is probably best remembered for what it considered his finest work - Charlotte's Web, a story about the meaning of friendship in which a spider saves the life of a pig. It is also an unusual in that as a children's book, Charlotte's Web asks children to think about death and how one goes on after the loss of a special person in life. The death of White's pig Fred on his farm, was the driving force behind this story, one in which White wanted a miraculous way to save a pig!

In Some Writer! we learn the origins of two of the most beloved storybooks for children, Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web. Sweet discusses the controversy that erupted over Stuart Little's "birth" and how unbelievably this led to librarians banning the book. It was White who wrote "...children can sail easily over the fence that separates reality from make-believe. A fence that can throw a librarian is nothing to a child." It's revealing to read how White struggled to write the opening for Charlotte's Web and how illustrator Garth Williams worked to create the face of Charlotte, a grey spider identified as Aranea cavatica.

Although Some Writer! is a biography written for young readers, adults will find Sweet's book a fascinating read with all of the artwork and bits of information about Elwyn Brooks White. Melissa Sweet has included an Author's Note, a Timeline, a Notes section, a Selected Bibliography and an Afterword written by Martha White, the grand daughter of E.B. White who fully endorses this bibilography.  Sweet's Some Writer! truly captures both his personal life and the impetus of his creative work, providing readers with a window into this most amazing and versatile writer.

Book Details:

Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt      2016
162 pp.