Book Review :: Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Published by Scholastic Press
on 1975
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction
Pages: 139
Goodreads

Doomed to - or blessed with - eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family wanders about trying to live as inconspicuously and comfortably as they can.

When ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles on their secret, the Tucks take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less a blessing than it might seem.

Complications arise when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune.

Last updated on 19 January 2024

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My thoughts on Tuck Everlasting

I saw Tuck Everlasting, the movie edition, years ago (it came out in 2002), and loved it, but hadn’t read the book, Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbit, so it was the perfect timing when I needed a book to read and I looked at my sister’s bookshelf.

And I must say it didn’t disappoint. I read it an hour and a half (it really was that short), but it was just how I remember the movie (which means the movie was done really well and according to the story it came from), and the only thing that I can remember being different in the movie was the age of the main character – Winnie Foster. In the book, Winnie is a ten-year-old girl, but in the movie, she is played by Alexis Bledel, who was 21 when it came out. In the movie, I think they portray her as around about 15, though I can’t remember for sure.

Anyway, if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, it was written in 1975 and it’s about Winnie Foster who lives in a grand house which has a small wood on the property. One day she is down in the wood and she sees a boy drinking water from a spring at the bottom of a large tree. To cut it short and into a sentence: the boy is Jesse Tuck and he and his family can’t die, because once, 87 years ago they drank the water from this spring and since then they haven’t aged and don’t die, even if they are hurt badly. And the story goes on about how Winnie makes friends with them; she has a huge crush on Jesse; there is a man who discovers their secret; someone gets thrown in jail…and it all ends…well, I won’t tell you.

But if you want a really short, but good, book about immortal families and supernatural water springs, do read it. Or see the movie. The movie will take you longer to watch than the book will to read, but they did it really well.

Have you read Tuck Everlasting? Seen the 2002 movie? What did you think?