" Ms. Udell leaned against her giant desk, reading to her fourth-grade class from a tattered copy of Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. She wore her shiny black hair in a loose bun, and wooden earrings dangled from her long earlobes. In her seat by the window, George couldn’t listen. She couldn’t think. Charlotte, the wonderful, kind spider, was gone and nothing was good. The whole book was about Charlotte saving the runt pig Wilbur, and then she goes and dies. It wasn’t fair. George pushed her fists into her eyes, rubbing until rows and rows of tiny triangles twirled and twinkled brightly in the darkness. A tear dropped onto George’s book and spread into a spiderweb on the page. She breathed in carefully, trying not to make a sound. Shallow "

― Alex Gino , George