Book Review: Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit

Bookish Ardour has sponsored The Century Challenge this year. The books selected will be decided by publication year and have to be read in order from the time period chosen.

I've decided to participate at the Decade level which means I read 10 books from one decade.




I read this for my "1975" choice.

From Wikipedia:
Winnie Foster comes from a well-bred, clean, healthy, straight-laced family who keep her locked away behind a four- foot iron fence that surrounds their home. They are the oldest family in the town, and own the surrounding woods. When running away from her confinement and into the woods one morning, she finds a beautiful tree from which a spring of water pours, with a teenage boy, who is almost a young man drinking from it. This discovery leads her to learn of a boy named Jesse Tuck and the rest of his family (Mae Tuck, Angus Tuck, and his brother Miles), who are immortal as a result of drinking from this spring eighty-seven years earlier.

My Thoughts: I have been curious about this book for a long time because my maiden name is Tucker which means my son has also been curious as that is his name! We listened to this on a road trip and it didn;t disappoint! We enjoyed the mystery of how Winnie figures out what the Tuck's family secret is and her delight in discovering that they have figured out how to live forever but then her realization that this may not be a good thing. I think we all take life itself for granted at some point, that we are invincible, but when faced with the option of living forever, is that something we would want? Added to that is the factor that this family was "stuck" if you will, at the age at which they first drank from the spring. An interesting book and very thought-provoking.