The concept of immortality, living forever and never ending life, is something that everyone of us, at some points in our life, desired. It is this very concept that Natalie Babbitt explores in her book, Tuck Everlasting.
This book revolves around the charachter of Winnie Foster who lives in an overprotective family that owns the forest near where their house is situated.
Once, when Winnie gets bored of sitting around, she sneaks out of the home and stumbles upon a boy, calling himself Jesse Tuck, aged 104, who is drinking out of a pond hidden by trees. Winnie, belonging from the family who owns the forest, wants to drink the water and when she is not allowed to, threatens to tell her father of his pond. When Winnie gets to know that this is a pond l, the water of which brings immortality to the drinker, she wants to drink the water all the more.
Soon, Mae Tuck and her other son appear and whisk her off to their home where she explores how being immortal has been more of a curse to the Tucks than a blessing.
Complexities follow where Mae is imprisoned for the killing of a man who wants to disclose the secret of the immortal pond.
At the end, Winnie is given a bottle of the magic water by Jesse who wants her to drink it when she turns seventeen so that they can live together for the rest of the eternity. At this point, the readers are forced to think of whether immortality IS really a thing they would like to be associated with?
A really excellent, classic, elegant book that explores all the concepts of immortality and changes our view of it.
Alexander's Rating: 8/10
Click here for the Amazon link to buy the book.
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