What is Stuart Little?

     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.