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I am fortunate enough to have a mother who loves books as much as I do. When
you grow up with a voracious reading appetite, it’s marvelous to have a
parent who always has the best suggestions, who guides you towards books like
Tuck Everlasting.
That’s right—long before it was a Disney movie, Tuck Everlasting
was an ALA Notable children’s book. And although it was the commercials
for the new movie that prompted me to pick up the book again, I remembered it
fondly. And rightly so. Reading this book is like drinking sunshine—something
so delightful you hardly notice it’s nourishing at the same time.
Or at least it’s like spending some time soaking in sunshine filtered
through the greenest leaves in an enchanted woods. Surely you can remember what
that feels like—however, if you’ve never experienced it, this is a
wonderful book to introduce you to the feeling. It will place you there firmly
and masterfully with just the right words. It will draw you into the moment
when Winnie Foster’s ten-year-old life became a fairy tale—one that
helped her see the world in a new, more grown-up way.
What’s the plot, then? Winnie Foster, while running away into her family’s
woods, meets a family called the Tucks, who take her back to their house to
explain the seriousness of their situation. For the Tucks are frozen in time—they
can’t die, having drunk from a certain spring in the Fosters’ woods
eighty years before. And they’ve discovered since that living forever’s
not always as pleasant as it sounds. Now that Winnie knows, she has some very
grown-up decisions to make. Tuck Everlasting tells the biblical story
of Adam and Eve’s fall reversed, posing the question What would it be
like to live forever in a fallen world?
But don’t think this book is all deep or hard to read just because it
introduces philosophical questions. They’re introduced naturally, as part
of the story. As part of a beautifully and simply told story with real characters—one
that everyone should read instead of watching the movie, in my opinion. If you
read the book first, you’re bound to get upset by the movie—but read my movie review to learn more about that.
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