“Tuck Everlasting” by Natalie Babbitt (published 1975)
Natalie Babbitt’s classic story, “Tuck Everlasting”, published in 1975, is a magical, powerful novella about a ten-year old girl named Winnie. She longs for something that is much more than her own bourgeois family, her own boring front yard, and her own lonesome self (whose only real friend at the beginning of the story is a frog). The day she decides to run away grants all her wishes. She spends a couple days living with an odd, mysterious, and gentle family – the Tucks - who tell her a big, unbelievable secret – a secret so important that it depends on their lives…
Besides a fantastic, perfectly-crafted plot, Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting” has some of the most beautiful literary prose ever written. The dead heat of August, the stifling feeling of loneliness, the exuberance of love, the passing of time and its effect on the atmosphere, and, quite unique to this book – the idea of a lost rural place with lots and lots forest and sudden otherworldly and unexpected clearings, clearings with old, whimsical trees and, sometimes, beautiful people… all these make “Tuck Everlasting” give off an aura both intriguing and poignant, which is even more pronounced when reading in the 21st Century.
The book’s biggest question might be: *when* and *how* do we say our hellos and goodbyes? To places… to people? And while this may prove to be a magnificent yet simple question, as is insinuated by a particularly nefarious man in the story, perhaps the point is that it’s not simple. It’s not because sometimes the hardest questions, when answered with the heart and soul, create the best and most meaningful experiences that fall somewhere in between living and remembering.
Besides a fantastic, perfectly-crafted plot, Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting” has some of the most beautiful literary prose ever written. The dead heat of August, the stifling feeling of loneliness, the exuberance of love, the passing of time and its effect on the atmosphere, and, quite unique to this book – the idea of a lost rural place with lots and lots forest and sudden otherworldly and unexpected clearings, clearings with old, whimsical trees and, sometimes, beautiful people… all these make “Tuck Everlasting” give off an aura both intriguing and poignant, which is even more pronounced when reading in the 21st Century.
The book’s biggest question might be: *when* and *how* do we say our hellos and goodbyes? To places… to people? And while this may prove to be a magnificent yet simple question, as is insinuated by a particularly nefarious man in the story, perhaps the point is that it’s not simple. It’s not because sometimes the hardest questions, when answered with the heart and soul, create the best and most meaningful experiences that fall somewhere in between living and remembering.
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