Stuart Little / E.B. White

E.B. White wrote three novels for children and all of them are classics: Stuart Little (1945); Charlotte’s Web (1953); and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970).

“When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse.”

Stuart Little begins with White’s trademark clear, lucid prose, reveling in simple details and winsome eccentricities. He presents Stuart, the mouse who is somehow a son in a human family, with such matter-of-factness that readers accept the strange premise and move on to the captivating story.

Although the family makes many accommodations to Stuart’s diminutive size, no one treats him like a mouse and he doesn’t really act like a mouse. Instead, he is a full-fledged member of the family, with a keen sense of fashion and a nose for adventure.

The Little family lives in New York City, and the city offers young Stuart a whole world of possibilities. He goes sailing in Central Park, piloting a toy sailboat into an exciting duel on the high seas. He endures a trip to the garbage barge, rescued by his beloved Margalo, a bird who nests for a while in the Little’s Boston fern. And he fends off the evil intentions of the family’s cat, Snowbell.