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There is this garbage heap buried deep in the middle of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, and I can’t believe I forgot it was there. I recently revisited White’s Middle Grade barnyard masterpiece because I love the talking critters, the ambitious spider and the weighing of mortality. But there’s also this great garbage! “Here, in a small clearing hidden by young alders and wild cranberry bushes, was an astonishing pile of old bottles and empty tin cans and dirty rags and bits of

My 13 year-old daughter recently aged herself out of Middle Grade books, and she isn't going quietly into the night: "MG books are SO lame!" she told me. "The stories are all the same! The characters always learn lessons, and there's never any real danger." I listen and nod and bite my tongue. She’s still reading at least, more sophisticated books about vampires and apocalypses and dating, but I miss our Middle Grade bond. In defense of Middle Grade, these books can be wildly