Tuck Everlasting

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt follows the journey of a young girl’s decision to live forever or remain mortal. The book received many honors and awards, including the Janusz Korczak Medal and the 1976 Christopher Award as best book for young people, among others, and it was named an ALA Notable Book. Tuck Everlasting was adapted twice into a full-length feature film (1981 and 2002), and it appeared on Broadway as a stage musical in 2016. Natalie Babbitt (1932-2016) was an American author and illustrator. She received both the Newbery Honor and Christopher awards, and she was the U.S. nominee for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1982. Babbitt majored in Studio Art at Smith College and went on to pen several works for young readers, including Knee-Knock Rise (1970), Goody Hall (1971), and The Eyes of the Amaryllis (1977). She illustrated The Forty-ninth Magician, which was written by her husband, Samuel Babbitt, in 1966, and Small Poems by Valerie Worth (1972). This guide follows the 1975 edition of Tuck Everlasting.

Plot Summary

Tuck Everlasting takes place in the mid-1800s against the backdrop of the hottest week of the year. Narrated by an omniscient third-party, the story follows Winnie (Winifred) Foster, the Tuck family, and the man in the yellow suit as their lives become intertwined around the secret of a mystical spring that grants its drinkers immortality.

Ten-year-old Winnie begins the book frustrated with her family and their strict lifestyle. She longs to run away and make a difference in the world and laments her troubles to a toad in her yard. One evening in early August, a man in a yellow suit stops outside her family’s home and asks about a nearby stand of trees. Winnie explains the land belongs to her family, and the two hear a strange, lilting melody from the trees. The man recognizes the melody from his childhood and believes it holds the key to finally finding the Tucks and discovering the secret to gaining immortality.

The next day, Winnie ventures out into the trees for the first time. There, she meets Jesse Tuck. After seeing him drink from a spring, she also wants a drink, but Jesse stops her. Mae and Miles, Jesse’s mother and brother, arrive and see Winnie trying to drink. Knowing the spring will stop Winnie from aging and fearing what will happen if the spring’s secret gets out, they kidnap her and explain their story. At first, Winnie is reluctant to believe them, but the more time she spends with the Tucks, the more she comes to think they can’t possibly be lying.

Unbeknownst to the Tucks and Winnie, the man in the yellow suit follows them and overhears the entire story. Later that night, he steals the Tucks’ horse and rides back to Winnie’s house, where he proposes a trade with her family. He will help them get Winnie back in exchange for ownership of the woods with the spring. Flustered, the Fosters agree, and the man in the yellow suit, accompanied by the constable, rides back to the Tuck house.

The following morning, Winnie and the Tucks sit down to breakfast when a knock comes at the door. It’s the man in the yellow suit, who rode ahead of the constable. He explains how he learned about the Tucks from a friend of his grandmother’s, and he asks for their help locating the spring so he can sell its magical water to people he believes deserve it. When the Tucks refuse to help, the man grabs Winnie, saying he will find the spring and force her to drink to have proof of the water’s effects. Mae hits the man over the head with a shotgun just as the constable arrives. Winnie returns home, and Mae is taken to the jailhouse. The man in the yellow suit dies later that night, and Mae is to be hung for his murder.

Jesse visits Winnie to tell her they plan to free Mae. Winnie volunteers to help to give them time to escape, and Jesse gives her a bottle of water from the spring, imploring her to drink when she’s 17. After a tearful goodbye outside the jailhouse, Winnie spends a terrified night in Mae’s cell and wakes to find the gallows have collapsed. Winnie returns home.

Two weeks later, Winnie is in her yard when the toad returns, chased by a dog. After scaring away the dog, Winnie pours the spring water Jesse gave her on the toad and sets it back into the wild, relieved in the knowledge it’s safe. Almost 100 years later, in the novel’s Epilogue, The Tucks return to the area to find the wood gone and that Winnie passed away two years prior. On their way out of the city, they pick up the toad Winnie poured the water on, not knowing the animal, like them, will live forever.