What if you could live forever? This is not the sort of question that ever crossed ten year old Winifred Foster’s mind before she met the Tuck family. All Winnie was looking for when she entered the woods behind her house early one morning was a little adventure. What she found was a family of four who hadn’t aged in over eighty years and a hidden spring by a large tree that holds the promise of eternal life.
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit is a slim novel for children between 9 and 12 years old that asks the age old question - if you had the chance to live forever, would you take it? Winnie is an altogether lovely little girl faced with some hefty choices. Is it a good idea to keep the Tuck’s secret, even from her own family? Should she, when she is a bit older, drink from the spring herself?
I was immediately impressed by Babbitt’s writing style as soon as I had read the first beautiful paragraph:
The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.
Tuck Everlasting is described perfectly by The Chicago Sun-Times: ”With its serious intentions and light touch, the story is, like the Tucks, timeless.” This book, albeit a short one, is wonderfully inventive and really makes you think about your own mortality and what living is really all about. Published in the early 1970’s, Tuck Everlasting is at times whimsical and sweet, other times serious and sad and altogether a perfect little gem of a book. My only disappointment with the book was that it was entirely too short!
I would highly recommend it and am so glad to have started off my Once Upon a Time Challenge with Tuck Everlasting. I just wish that I actually read it when I was a child, since I am sure that it would have been one of my favorites.
The movie version of Tuck Everlasting was released in 2002 and so after finishing the book I figured it would be nice to see how it translated to film.
Unfortunately, the movie didn’t capture the same feeling I had while reading the book and I found myself dozing off after a half hour - never a good beginning to a film! I finally decided to call it a night and have not felt the desire to watch the rest of the movie since. Oh well, at least the book was enjoyable!
On another note, I just wanted to point out that the book cover for Tuck Everlasting is so much more attractive than the film poster. The books faded photograph and beautiful typography really evokes a certain mystery, while the movie poster is pure Hollywood fluff. Which do you prefer?
Posted in book reviews, books & movies
