Its enduring meaning to readers nearly half a century later makes the case that children can and even yearn to grapple with darkness-that, indeed, denying their very real, very universal fears is far more frightening. While its lessons hinge on its central fantastical element, its themes are grounded in some of the heaviest elements of reality people of all ages must confront. Babbitt’s book won numerous awards, was adapted into two movies and a Broadway musical and translated into 27 languages.

Intense and powerful, exciting and poignant, Tuck Everlasting will last forever-in the reader's imagination. Saddled with a secret she must help to conceal as outsiders seek to profit off of the powerful elixir, Winnie learns that it is the fact of life’s ending that gives meaning to all that comes before. Tuck Everlasting, which she published in 1975, has been consistently popular with children and with teachers it was named an ALA Notable Book after its publication and won the 1976 Christopher Award, while in the 21st century, it's made it onto lists of 100 best books for children compiled by the School Library Journal and the National. Babbitt asks profound questions about the meaning of life and death, and leaves the reader with a greater appreciation for the perfect cycle of nature. In it, young Winnie Foster comes to know a family, the Tucks, who have been granted the seemingly enviable but actually burdensome miracle of immortality after unknowingly drinking from a magical spring in the further reaches of her family’s property.

The girl was afraid of dying, so Babbitt wrote a story for young readers that faced death head-on. That's the question at the heart of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting, a celebrated book for young readers that's marking its 40th anniversary this year. Natalie Babbitt got the idea for her now-classic 1975 novel, Tuck Everlasting, from her four-year-old daughter.

The tuck everlasting book