For several years now, I’ve been following Jenny Williams’ work online – she runs the adorable Carrot Top Paper Shop on Etsy, and her Instagram account and newsletter are full of sweet literary goodness. She sells prints, mugs, bookmarks and stickers with quotes from our favorite heroines (real and fictional), and like me, she’s an Anne Shirley fan from way back.
I ordered Jenny’s literary heroines calendar for my kitchen wall this year, and I love the simple design: each month features a drawing of a beloved character, along with a banner naming one of her essential qualities. When I flipped the calendar to April this week, Fern Arable was looking back at me. The banner under her portrait says simply, “Compassionate.”
Fern is the (human) heroine of Charlotte’s Web (though we all know the real heroine is that wonderful spider). She saves Wilbur the piglet from certain death at the beginning of the book, and she cares for him until he’s sold to her uncle, at which point she still comes to visit him. She is tenderhearted and kind, and she’s the only human in the book who can understand animal conversation, at least for a while.
It strikes me that in this moment, we need a dose of Fern’s compassion: we are all doing our best to tend to ourselves and our people, while supporting the healthcare workers and others who are working to heal the sick. I am sure Jenny couldn’t have known what an apt heroine Fern would be for April, but I’m glad to have her face on my kitchen wall this month.
cakes, tea and dreams 