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Selection source:
I chose this book because it was short in length and the book blurb on the back was intriguing.
Summary/Description:
Tuck Everlasting is the story of the Tuck family and the secret they share. Winnie Foster, a ten-year-old girl, stumbles across Jesse Tuck drinking from a spring while she was in a wooded area owned by her family in Treetop, Ohio. Jesse takes Winnie to their family. Jesses family explains to Winnie that the spring has immortal properties meaning that if you drink from the spring you will live forever. The Tuck family returns to the spring every ten years to drink from the spring. A man in a yellow suit has been pursuing the Tucks for years looking to discover this eternal spring. He makes a deal with Winnies family, he will return Winnie in exchange for the land and the spring. The Tucks are further angered by Yellow Suits plan to bottle the water and sell it to the public. Mae confronts Yellow Suit with a shotgun and threatens him with it. There is a struggle between Mae, her son, and Yellow Suit to get the gun, and just as the constable is pulling into the yard, Mae whips the gun around so hard that it fractures Yellow Suits skill. The constable arrests Mae and she is sentenced to hang. The boys in the Tuck family realize that their secret will be revealed when Mae does not die from the hanging, so they plan to break her out of jail. They take Winnie along with them and leave her in prison while they escape with Mae. They cannot stay in Treetop and make plans to escape. Jesse gives Winnie a bottle of water and asks her to drink it when she is 17 so that she can find them and be married. Winnie spends quite a bit of time considering this but ultimately pours it on a toad thinking that if she changes her mind, she can always get more from the spring. Fast forward many years later, Mae and her husband return to Treetop and find things have drastically changed. The area has now become a suburb and the spring is gone. They travel to a cemetery and discover Winnies grave. Winnie had died two years previously after having grown up and married. She ultimately decided she did not want to live forever. The story ends with the Tucks coming across a toad on the road but is unaware that it is the toad that Winnie poured the water on all those years ago.
Evaluation and commentary:
This book asks the intriguing question: if you could choose to live forever would you? It is an exciting premise for a reader. The story is a quick read although, with the authentic vocabulary of the time like constable, it can be a little difficult to understand especially if a young reader doesnt have prior knowledge of that time. The book has won numerous awards and was named by Anita Silvey in The 100 Best Books for Children in 2005. The book has been adapted into both a movie and a musical. The main change in the story is the age of Winnie. She is 10 in the book and Jesse is 104 but appears to be 17. She was aged so that the romantic plot would be more appropriate and have more appeal. Tuck Everlasting is a good story if a teen would give this old-fashioned story a chance.
- Shmoop Editorial Team. ‘Tuck Everlasting Summary.’ Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 29 Oct. 2017.
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