Tuck Everlasting
by Natalie Babbitt
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Book Summary Information
Author: Natalie BabbittBrand: Square Fish
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-21
ISBN: 0312369816
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Square Fish
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780312369811
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Tuck Everlasting
Book Review: "...adventure and imagination..." as one!
Summary: 5 Stars
All of Natalie Babbitt's works are juvenile fiction, but Tuck Everlasting brings adventure and good life lessons to the table. Her writing style illustrates the characters and the setting brilliantly. Her vocabulary is very age appropriate and at the same time is very rich with new words for readers to explore. As soon as the reader opens the book, you feel personally involved in the story. Babbitt makes you feel like you can relate to the main character's situations. Her written language is filled with descriptors that allow you to fall into the story, as if you are the main character.
This story stars a rambunctious ten-year-old (Winnie Foster), being raised in a very rigid, old fashioned American family. She dreams of adventure and living her own life, so one day she decides to run away. Not far into her travels, she wanders into the giant wood behind her house and stumbles into adventure. She spots a boy, Jesse Tuck, drinking from what turns out to be a magical spring that stops time to whoever drinks from it. The secret must be kept of this well that gives eternal life, but Winnie doesn't quite understand why, so Jesse and his family (the Tuck's) take her to their house to try to get her to understand why it is so important to keep the secret. Winnie learns many life lessons from the Tuck's and it changes her perspective on life and death. While all this is going on, an unknown danger is lurking, a man in a yellow suit has heard the secret to the well and followed the Tuck's home. Babbitt's lucrative writing style brings the scenery to life for the reader. This coming of age story about loyalty, friendships, and the role of death in life teaches young readers about making responsible decisions while recognizing what is important in your life. The story leads to trouble, when the man in the yellow suit reveals his selfish plan to make money from selling the spring water that gives eternal life. What will Winnie do, and how far will she go to save her new found friends?
All of the main characters in the story are people you feel like you've met before. Also, the Tuck's are people who everyone, as a child, would want to know. Everyone, except the "bad guy", are lovable people with several characteristics that are unique and appealing to the reader. The father is a great role model that exemplifies the main theme of the story which is why death should be a part of life. He is a crucial character because of his great influence on Winnie's life. Winnie the main character is the epitome of what a child is: pure curiosity.
The main themes of the story include good lessons on life and death, loyalty, friendships, making responsible decisions, and thinking critically. These themes are great for young readers because they are all elements of life that we have to experience. "But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing. But its passing us by, us Tucks...you can't have living without dying." (page 63 of book). This quote from the story portrays the theme of life and death. This is a pretty heavy topic for younger readers, but crucial because death is a reality. Natalie Babbitt's way of writing this scene, where Tuck (the father) is trying to explain to Winnie why the secret must be kept, is very poetic and metaphorical but still age appropriate. Another main theme, loyalty, is described in a scene where the danger begins, "Then Winnie said something she had never said before... they [the words] sounded strange on her own lips, and made her sit up a little straighter, `don't worry, everything will be all right'." Babbitt is sure to include subtle inferences to Winnie's growth during the story, "...and made her sit up a little straighter..." is, to us, a metaphor to her realizing a purpose and her loyalty to her new friends, the Tuck's.
We feel like this book is wonderful for all readers, young and old. Given the life lessons within the storyline, adventure and imagination are together working to create a book that is more than just another story, but an influential fantasy that imagination can sprout from.
Summary of Tuck Everlasting
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 that it might seem. Complications arise when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune.
Imagine coming upon a fountain of youth in a forest. To live forever--isn't that everyone's ideal? For the Tuck family, eternal life is a reality, but their reaction to their fate is surprising. Award winner Natalie Babbitt (Knee-Knock Rise, The Search for Delicious) outdoes herself in this sensitive, moving adventure in which 10-year-old Winnie Foster is kidnapped, finds herself helping a murderer out of jail, and is eventually offered the ultimate gift--but doesn't know whether to accept it. Babbitt asks profound questions about the meaning of life and death, and leaves the reader with a greater appreciation for the perfect cycle of nature. Intense and powerful, exciting and poignant, Tuck Everlasting will last forever--in the reader's imagination. An ALA Notable Book. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
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