I am beyond thrilled to be participating in the Tuck Everlasting 40 Days For 40 Years Blog Tour and to help celebrate this beloved classic! If you have never had the pleasure of reading Natalie Babbitt's gorgeous story of love, family, life, and death, then you are in for such a treat. Tuck Everlasting is one of those super special books that may have been written for children, but touch and move readers of all ages. This lovely little book is imaginative, sweet, funny, thoughtful, and unforgettable with its charming characters and stunning story...
Tuck Everlasting (40th Anniversary Edition)
1/20/15
Macmillan Children's Publishing
2015 marks the 40th anniversary of Natalie Babbitt’s celebrated, groundbreaking title Tuck Everlasting (Anniversary edition on sale January 20). In celebration of the anniversary, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group will publish a special anniversary edition featuring an introduction from Wicked author Gregory Maguire.
Tuck Everlasting asks readers “What if you could live forever?” Doomed to, or blessed with, eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family wanders about trying to live as inconspicuously and comfortably as they can. When ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles on their secret, the Tucks take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less of a blessing than it might seem. Then complications arise when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune.
Upon the book’s publication in 1975, Natalie was greeted with concern from parents and educators who were stunned to read a book about death written for children. She is an author who challenges her readers and thinks the best questions are the ones without answers. This 40th anniversary will introduce a whole new generation to this timeless classic. Four decades later, the question Natalie asks in Tuck Everlasting (“What if we could live forever?”) is still a source of constant intrigue. Young adult literature trends, in particular, seem to be obsessed with mortality. From vampires through the current wave of realistic fiction, it is clear that readers are just fascinated with examining death, or in many cases the possibility of eluding death. The book has sold over 3.5 million copies in the US alone, and has never been out of print since publication. This edition features an introduction from Wicked author Gregory Maguire.
Praise for Tuck Everlasting
"A fearsome and beautifully written book that can’t be put down or forgotten." —The New York Times
"Exciting and excellently written." —The New York Times Book Review
"With its serious intentions and light touch the story is, like the Tucks, timeless." —Chicago Sun-Times
"Rarely does one find a book with such prose. Flawless in both style and structure, it is rich in imagery and punctuated with light fillips of humor. The author manipulates her plot deftly, dealing with six main characters brought together because of a spring whose waters can bestow everlasting life. . . . Underlying the drama is the dilemma of the age-old desire for perpetual youth." —The Horn Book Magazine
"Probably the best work of our best children’s novelist." —Harper’s
"Natalie Babbitt’s great skill is spinning fantasy with the lilt and sense of timeless wisdom of the old fairy tales. . . . It lingers on, haunting your waking hours, making you ponder." —The Boston Globe
"This book is as shapely, crisp, sweet, and tangy as a summer-ripe pear." —Entertainment Weekly
"Beautiful and descriptive language is the strength of Babbitt’s fantasy about Winnie and her encounter with the Tuck family, who cause her—and readers—to ponder an important question: What would it be like to live forever?" —Booklist
NATALIE BABBITT is the award-winning author of Tuck Everlasting, The Eyes of the Amaryllis, Knee-Knock Rise, and many other brilliantly original books for young people. She began her career in 1966 as the illustrator of The Forty-Ninth Magician, a collaboration with her husband. When her husband became a college president and no longer had time to collaborate, Babbitt tried her hand at writing. Her first novel, The Search for Delicious, established her gift for writing magical tales with profound meaning. Knee-Knock Rise earned her a Newbery Honor, and in 2002, Tuck Everlasting was adapted into a major motion picture. Natalie Babbitt lives in Connecticut, and is a grandmother of three.
by me!
What if you could live forever?
This is the question Natalie Babbitt asks her readers and the question I've been asked to answer for this blog tour. As a child, I wanted young Winnie to go back to the magic spring as a teenager, drink, and live forever, having fantastic adventures with Jesse...now, as an adult, I'm so glad she didn't. She may not have lived forever, but Winnie lived fully, and that is, after all, the greatest adventure of all. Would I choose to live forever? The easy answer: no. I've been musing over the long, thoughtful answer and honestly, its pretty boring. So, I started wondering what IF I could live forever? I always wondered what fun things Jesse and Miles Tuck did and and saw every ten years. And that got me to thinking about all the fun, amazing things I would want to do if time was no issue. So I give you:
The Top Ten Careers I Would Attempt If I Could Live Forever
1. Astronaut...if I'm going to live forever, then Earth would eventually get too small for me, so naturally, I'd explore the great wide universe and beyond.
2. Marine Biologist...but before I went exploring outer space, I would love to spend decades exploring the great oceans. I would want to find shipwrecks, swim with great whites, and help clean up the oceans.
3. Bookshop/Cupcake Bakery Owner...yep a bookshop AND cupcake bakery! I'd call it Sweet Reads and it would be awesome!
4. Doctor...this would actually probably be the first career I would accomplish because an immortal doctor can save A LOT of lives and deliver A LOT of adorable babies!
5. Nail Polish Designer...I am obsessed with naming nail polishes and have always wanted to design a line of bookish nail polish called Novel Nails.
6. Ghost Hunter...with my own reality television show of course!
7. Actress...c'mon, if I'm gonna live forever then I should go for my 15 minutes of fame. And based on my acting skills, it'll be a very short 15 minutes.
8. Teacher...several lifetimes of experience, learning, and discoveries could make for a helluva teaching career.
9. Disney Princess character at Disney World or Harry Potter character at the Magical World of Harry Potter...how fun would these jobs be?!
10. Time Traveler...I'm going to live forever and chances are, time travel WILL be a reality eventually...maybe, I'll even get my own TARDIS!
and for some extra fun...
Top Five Things I Would Do If I Could Live Forever
1. read ALL the books
2. learn ALL the languages
3. play ALL the instruments
4. eat ALL the food
5. adopt ALL the babies
Ok, so whaddya think of my career choices? What would YOU do if you could live forever? Be sure to pre-order the 40th Anniversary Edition and check out the other stops on this blog tour by searching the #Tuck40th hashtag on Twitter and Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment