E.B. White is widely known for his children's classics, "Stuart Little" and "Charlotte's Web," and before this month, that was the only venue in which I'd encountered him, I'm sad to say.

"Stuart Little" is one of my all-time favorite children's books, partly because of one of the most serendipitous reading experiences I ever had, when what you are reading turns out to be absolutely perfect for that time and place.

In my case, my family was on a camping trip to Lake Namakanta -- our first time to the northern Maine wilds -- and I was reading "Stuart" to my son, who was almost 5 at the time. We sat on the shore of the pristine lake, on an improbably glorious August day and we were reading "Ames' Crossing" : "He stepped out and the sun felt so good that he sat down on the porch for a few moments to enjoy the feeling of being in a new place on a fine day. This was the most peaceful and beautiful spot he had found in his travels."

I bring up White's children's book career because I was so excited to see the essay on children's books, and also one on poets. The children's books essay was prompted by the review copies his wife, Katharine, received, and was written well before he wrote Stuart in 1945.

Was White thinking of tackling the genre when he wrote that essay in 1938? "Close physical contact with the field of juvenile literature leads me to the conclusion that it must be a lot of fun to write for children -- reasonably easy work, perhaps even important work," he wrote. He found much of the genre lacking -- "dull prosy stuff, by writers who mistake oddity for fantasy and whose wildly beating wings never get them an inch off the ground." (He did, however, praise Dr. Seuss, further cementing my view of his good taste.)

I also appreciated the essay "Poetry," knowing that White was a published poet. However, his bio on my edition of "Stuart" says that he would have liked, more than anything, to be a poet.

"I think poetry is the greatest of the arts," White wrote. "It combines music and painting and story-telling and prophecy and the dance. It is religious in tone, scientific in attitude."

What do you think? Is White correct that poetry is the greatest of the arts? And where do you think he excelled most -- as an essayist or a children's writer?

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