Book Reviews: Tuck Everlasting

A Review of Tuck Everlasting
By Christi Aldellizzi

Babbitt, Natalie. Tuck Everlasting. Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 1975. 144 pages. Tr. $16.95 ISBN 0-374-37848-7.

Would you drink from the fountain of youth? This age-old dilemma is given new life in Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting. The story reads slowly at first, but with reason: three introductory chapters are necessary to familiarize readers with the main characters—the Tuck family, Winnie Foster, and the man in the yellow suit—individually. Once these characters begin interacting, the story line flows much more rapidly.

Ten year old Winnie Foster so desperately seeks to escape her stoic and structured home that she contemplates running away: “I’m not exactly sure what I’d do, you know, but something interesting—something that’s all mine. Something that would make some kind of difference in the world.” While exploring the woods that border her home, Winnie stumbles upon the Tuck family and catapults herself into just such an adventure. The Tucks accidentally drank from a magic spring that granted them eternal life. Prior to meeting Winnie, they had never shared this secret with anyone.

Succinct arguments are given both for and against eternal life. The father of the family, Tuck, is very appreciative of life surrounding him and expresses jealousy while watching another man die. He desperately wants Winnie to understand that “dying’s part of the wheel, right there next to being born…But it’s passing us by, us Tucks. Living’s heavy work, but off to one side, the way we are, it’s useless, too.”

Mae and Tuck’s youngest son, Jesse (eternally seventeen), isn’t exactly unhappy with his family’s infinite youth: “We might as well enjoy it, long as we can’t change it.” Desperate for a companion closer to his own “age,” Jesse tries to convince Winnie of the benefits of living forever, and presents her with an extraordinary proposal.

Let us not forget the third facet of this story. At first, a seemingly minor character, the man in the yellow suit becomes an integral part of the story. Menacing without a threat or a grimace, this nameless man strives to further his own well being at any cost, and something about him chills Winnie instantly: “But Winnie, though she was half-charmed, was suddenly reminded of the stiff black ribbons they had hung on the door of the cottage for her grandfather’s funeral.”

While Tuck Everlasting was written for children aged nine to twelve, adults will better appreciate the ethical questions posed in the novel. Children will certainly understand the story, but, like Jesse, will probably not realize the extent of the consequences that eternal youth can bring. Babbitt does an excellent job of creating a scenario so enticing that every reader, young or old, will pause to consider it: to live forever! To never grow old, never die, never suffer. On the other hand, eternal life means outliving your loved ones. You can never set down roots, and, perhaps most important, you can never, ever, rest. Discovering which path Winnie has chosen only leaves a complex question for the reader to consider: Would you drink from the fountain of youth?