Charlotte's Web was generally well-reviewed when it was released. In The New York Times, Eudora Welty wrote: "As a piece of work it is just about perfect, and just about magical in the way it is done."[26]
Aside from its paperback sales, Charlotte's Web is 78th on the all-time bestselling hardback book list. According to publicity for the 2006 film adaptation (see below), the book has sold more than 45 million copies and been translated into 23 languages. It was a Newbery Honor book for 1953, losing to Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark for the medal.
In 1970, White won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, a major prize in the field of children's literature, for Charlotte's Web, along with his first children's book, Stuart Little (1945).
Seth Lerer, in his book Children's Literature, finds that Charlotte represents female authorship and creativity, and compares her to other female characters in children's literature such as Jo March in Little Women and Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden.[27] Nancy Larrick brings to attention the "startling note of realism" in the opening line, "Where's Papa going with that Ax?"[28]
Illustrator Henry Cole expressed his deep childhood appreciation of the characters and story, and calls Garth Williams's illustrations full of "sensitivity, warmth, humor, and intelligence."[29] Illustrator Diana Cain Bluthenthal states that Williams's illustrations inspired and influenced her.[30]
An unabridged audio book read by White himself reappeared decades after it had originally been recorded.[31] Newsweek writes that White reads the story "without artifice and with a mellow charm," and that "White also has a plangency that will make you weep, so don't listen (at least, not to the sad parts) while driving."[31] Joe Berk, president of Pathway Sound, had recorded Charlotte's Web with White in White's neighbor's house in Maine (which Berk describes as an especially memorable experience) and released the book in LP.[32] From Michael Sims: "The producer later said that it took him 17 takes to read the death scene of Charlotte. And finally, they would walk outside, and E.B. White would go, this is ridiculous, a grown man crying over the death of an imaginary insect. And then, he would go in and start crying again when he got to that moment."[33] Bantam released Charlotte's Web alongside Stuart Little on CD in 1991, digitally remastered, having acquired the two of them for rather a large amount.[32]
In 2005, a school teacher in California conceived of a project for her class in which they would send out hundreds of drawings of spiders (each representing Charlotte's child Aranea going out into the world so that she can return and tell Wilbur of what she has seen) with accompanying letters; they ended up visiting a large number of parks, monuments, and museums, and were hosted by and/or prompted responses from celebrities and politicians such as John Travolta and then-First Lady Laura Bush.[34]
In 2003, Charlotte's Web was listed at number 170 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's 200 "best-loved novels."[35] A 2004 study found that Charlotte's Web was a common read-aloud book for third-graders in schools in San Diego County, California.[36] Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children."[37] It was one of the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.[38]
In 2010, the New York Public Library reported that Charlotte's Web was the sixth most borrowed book in the library's history.[39]
Its awards and nominations include:
- John Newbery Honor Book (1953)[40]
- Horn Book Fanfare (1952)[41]
- Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal (1970) (awarded to White for his children's books: Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little)
- Massachusetts Children's Book Award (1984)[42]
