Some Writer!: The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet (review)

E. B. White is such a fixture in the children’s literature landscape that it’s hard to think of him as a regular person. Fortunately, Melissa Sweet comes to the rescue in this individual, creative, and thoroughly artistic chronicle of the noted writer’s life. The text, which draws extensively on quotes from White himself, those that knew him, and those affected by his writing, traces White’s life from animal-loving child to embracer of the outdoors, from juvenile wordsmith to adult fixture at the New Yorker and to major children’s author. The text narrative, however, functions almost as another element of the aggregate collage of the book, which includes visuals ranging from photographs and original illustrations to handwritten and hand-typed contributions to clippings of White’s work; additionally, Sweet creates art pieces that include those components and much more (a map festooned with realia traces White’s youthful journey west, for instance). The effect is one of a delightful, somewhat eccentric (only one chapter has footnotes) museum exhibit on White that dramatically, tactilely evokes his milieu and working process as well as chronicling his life, and it’s useful for a window into the writing life in general (examples of various drafts of art and illustration are included) and White in particular. Extensive end matter includes notes from Sweet about the book and her art, a timeline of White’s life, an afterword by White’s granddaughter, endnotes for quotations, a long bibliography on White plus a list of White’s books, and an index.