The 1973 animated movie Charlotte’s Web was the only movie version of the book until the remake came out around 2006. Even now, I still prefer the original cartoon. Maybe it’s childhood nostalgia, but it was a very well-made film.

The story of a young pig named Wilbur who was going to be slaughtered out of mercy, then raised by a little girl, sounds a bit silly on paper. But it’s one of the most classic children’s novels ever written.

You definitely feel a lot of sympathy for Wilbur, or at least I did. I have a huge compassion for animals, which is one of the reasons I’m a vegetarian. So the thought of a young pig being culled just because he’s a runt absolutely shatters my heart. I’m very glad they didn’t go through with it.

The best part of Charlotte’s Web is the talking animals, not the human characters. I think even as a kid I was surprised that Charlotte turned out to be a barn spider.

She’s miraculously good at weaving words in English into her web, and she becomes Wilbur’s PR agent, the magic force working behind the scenes to save him.

The bittersweet part of Charlotte’s Web is that as Wilbur gets older, the story takes a heavier turn.

Charlotte, the beloved spider, simply dies. If there were warning signs, I definitely missed them as a kid, and wow, it is remarkably sad. It’s very common for people to swat a spider with a newspaper without a second thought, but we didn’t have tears for those little eight-legged creatures until Charlotte came along.

At least the cartoon version does a great job of showing the hundreds, if not thousands, of little babies she managed to lay before she passed away.