Natalie Babbitt

Fiction 1975 | 140 pages

Natalie Babbitt conceived of the idea for her now-classic 1975 novel, Tuck Everlasting, from her four-year-old daughter. The girl was afraid of dying, so Babbitt wrote a story for young readers that faced death head-on. In it, young Winnie Foster comes to know a family, the Tucks, who have been granted the seemingly enviable but actually burdensome miracle of immortality after unknowingly drinking from a magical spring in the further reaches of their family’s property.

What a completely enjoyable book! It is a Young Adult book; a very easy read.  Winnie, at ten, is faced with the consequences of drinking from the spring and never aging a moment or letting her natural life progress.  The wise Tuck family advises her to wait until she is 17 or older to make this decision and admonishes her never to tell anyone about the spring.  Knowledge of the spring could certainly wreak havoc among the people.  It is actually an important and valuable concept to consider for all of us adults (and children) who are reading this in our armchairs.

I missed this book completely years ago.  It is listed on the “100 Best Fantasy Novels of All Time,” A New York Time’s publication that has informed a reasonable portion of what I have read these last few years.

If you have an afternoon to sit with a cup of tea, your feet curled under you, read this.  It won’t take you long.  It will make you think.  And it will delight you with excellent writing along the way.

June 2024