Tuck Everlasting

Tuck Everlasting, written by Natalie Babbit, is a book that I always wished I had read when I was younger, but never did. When I was growing up, I never read fantasy or science fiction books--that genre belonged to my sister, and I was the one who always read historical fiction. I remember seeing previews for the movie and thinking that it really didn’t look like something I would enjoy, just because I knew it was a fantasy story.

When I started this book, I knew nothing about it. I read one of my classmate’s blog entries saying that she really didn’t enjoy this book, so I thought I would give it a chance. Winnie, a ten-year old girl living a sheltered life, comes upon Jesse Tuck drinking from a spring in woods owned by her parents one day. Jesse persuades her from drinking from the spring, and the Tuck family (Mae, Miles, and Jesse) kidnaps Winnie to tell her their story. They take her to their house where she meets Mae’s husband, Angus Tuck, who just goes by Tuck. The family tells her about how they drank from the spring in the woods 87 years ago and have not aged since that day. They tell her it is a terrible thing and that she must never tell anyone about the water. Mae ends up killing a bad man who bought the woods from Winnie’s parents when he comes to take Winnie back. Winnie has come to realize that she loves the Tucks and switches places with Mae in jail so she will not be hung, and thus found out that she will never die.

Throughout the story, Babbit’s beautiful description of the woods and all of the scenery automatically pulled me into the story. Her opening description of the August heat really set the stage so that I could visualize exactly what was happening and how the characters must be feeling. It reminded me a lot of August in Virginia. Every description Babbit made was beautiful; I wanted to write down the whole book in my Wonderful Words section. I especially enjoyed the verbs and adjectives she chose to use in the descriptions, for example when she describes the Tuck’s house—“an ancient green-plush sofa lolled alone in the center”, “an elderly rocker stood about aimlessly”, “a vast and tipsy brass bed took up most of the space” (51).

I thought Tuck’s description of how the spring might be left over “from some other plan for the way the world should be….Some plan that didn’t work out too good. And so everything was changed.” (41) From the beginning of the story it was clear that Babbit does not believe eternal life is a good thing. She addresses this idea when Mae tells Winnie that they “don’t deserve no blessings—if it is a blessing” (55), referring to their eternal life. If I had been asked whether or not I would have liked to never age and be 21 eternally, I might have answered yes before reading this book. However, reading this book really got me thinking about how it might be if I was like the Tucks and could never grow any older and would never really have any friends or a home that I could stay with for a long time. She provides a very interesting perspective on this idea.

It was really interesting to follow Winnie’s evolution throughout the book. She starts off saying she is going to run away from her safe, protected home, but when she is kidnapped, she becomes upset when Mae tells her she will bring her home tomorrow. Although Winnie had wanted to run away the day before, when it actually happened that she was taken from her home, she was initially terrified. When Winnie goes to the Tuck’s home, she is at first startled by how different it is from her own home and she is homesick. She eventually comes to love the family as the day goes on, particularly when each family member comes down to check on her when she is trying to fall asleep. Finally, at the end of the story, Winnie is brave enough to do something important, which is what she wanted to do all along. She trades places with Mae in jail so Mae can get out of town before she will be hanged for killing the man. This takes courage for a ten-year old girl to do.

In the Prologue, Babbit introduces three characters, Mae Tuck, Winnie Foster, and the stranger, saying “No connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways.” (4) This interconnectedness of the characters and the author talking directly to the reader here reminded me a lot of DiCamillo’s Tale of Despereaux. Since I read that book recently, I was intrigued by this book and hoped that it might be similar.

The biggest theme throughout this book is the idea of life as a cycle. This is how Tuck describes it to Winnie. People are born, they grow up, have children of their own, and then die to make room for other people. Living and dying are both part of life, and death is not a bad thing.

I have a question about the man who bought the woods from Winnie’s parents so he could sell the water from the spring. There were multiple references to him being a puppet or a marionette. I am sure that this must be a symbol for something, but I can’t think of what he is a symbol for. Maybe he’s a puppet of greed?