As promised in a comment to a reader this week, here is more info on this clue in Children’s Lit from last Saturday’s Jeopardy! rerun that originally aired October 14, 2009: “As the word ‘born’ in the first sentence of this book creeped people out, E.B. White changed it to ‘arrived.'”
The whole first line of the book is: “When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse.” The book was originally published in 1945. (I learned that E.B. White lived from 1899-1985! Wow!) Stuart Little was White’s first book for children. He came up with the story after dreaming about a boy who acted more like a mouse. He had been a contributor to The New Yorker before that. He’s also known for co-writing the classic The Elements of Style with William Strunk.
I read Charlotte’s Web, first published in 1952, as a kid but never Stuart Little. And I have not seen the 1999 movie or its 2002 sequel, and I have to admit I did not know anything about the story’s plot! Stuart was the couple’s second “son.” He was fully grown by the age of 7 and was a little more than two inches tall. The book chronicles Stuart’s adventures as he seeks his friend Margalo, who had flown north the spring after they had met.
What is Stuart Little?
