Tuck Everlasting

I love this book. It was first published in 1975, not always easily available since then, and now appears in a new hardback edition with a ‘major motion picture’ coming. From the wheel-turning image of the opening, the story, like Pullman’s clock, has a marvellously sprung art and ease to it: ‘three things happened and at first there appeared to be no connection between them… No connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways. The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel.’ The reader then shares with ten-year-old Winnie the wonder of the Tucks’ secret of everlasting life and then the dawning understanding of their situation. This is crystalised in the remarkable chapter, at the centre of the book, where Pa Tuck takes Winnie out onto a pond to show her what they have lost in losing life, living, change and death. It’s a great read, a page-turner which educates and makes you marvel at life and stories – and face up to endings. A classic and a beautiful book.