Charlotte's Web Friendship

All Wilbur wants in life is a good friend. Is that really too much to ask? When Wilbur first gets to the Zuckerman barn, he's afraid that a good friend might be too hard to find. Check out how Wilbur defines a friend here: "someone who would play with him." Do you think that definition changes over the course of the novel? Or how does it remain the same?

Wilbur is pretty skeptical about Charlotte at first. In fact, he's downright insulting when he thinks about this potential new friend. It's a good thing first impressions aren't set in stone. Otherwise, our leading man might have found himself ending up as Christmas dinner.

Charlotte is being a great pal. Telling someone who's marked for death that you're going to save his life is quite a promise to make. But Charlotte is also sort of harsh here. What do you think of Charlotte's attitude to Wilbur's crying? She may be supportive, but she's not always the most sensitive.

Charlotte sure is bossy and loyal, all at once. She has no problem giving Wilbur a compliment and an order back-to-back. (Come to think of it, she's starting to sound a lot more like his mom than his friend.)

In Charlotte's Web, friendships aren't limited to the pigpen. In fact, Wilbur's first friend is Fern. And Fern sure likes being friends with all the barn animals. But keep an eye out for how this human-animal friendship changes over time.

Charlotte didn't receive a lick of recognition for her work in earning Wilbur the county fair prize. But to her, their success is still something they share together. It's like she's living vicariously through Wilbur because he's her best bud.

It's pretty amazing how Charlotte and Wilbur can communicate without talking. They're such good friends that they don't even need words to send one another messages. Turns out maybe there's something more important than writing.

Wilbur's best friend is gone, but now he gets to pledge friendship to Charlotte's three kiddos. What do you think about Wilbur's pledge to be friends "forever and ever"? We have to admit, we're tearing up at this intergenerational chumminess.

Poor Wilbur. We really feel for him here. He's missing his best friend now that Charlotte is dead. Do you think Wilbur and Charlotte's friendship keeps going after she's died? Or does it have to stop once she's no longer physically around?

For Wilbur, his friendships with spiders seem to have no end. Instead of stopping when the spiders die, he gets new friends every single year. This means he's always making new chums, which is cool. But it also means he's always saying good-bye to old friends, and that's got to be tough.