Author: Natalie Babbitt
Publisher: Recorded Books
Rating: WARTY!
Ably read by Barbara Caruso.
When I first heard of this title, it was confusing to me because 'tuck' or 'tucker' in England and Australia, means food. Was this a story about the 'horn o' plenty' I wondered? But no, it simply means that the Tuck family is everlasting! Ever since then I've been intending to at least watch the movie if not read the story, but I never got around to either until now. Having listened to about two-thirds of the audio book, ably read by Barbara Caruso, I have to announce that I was not impressed.
This rather short story is about Winnie Foster who, when we meet her, is contemplating and discussing (with a nearby toad, who frankly seems rather reticent about venting an opinion) her desire to run away. Soon after this, in the middle of a small wooded area (which her family owns) near her home, she meets a boy who is enjoying the water from a spring which runs out from under a youthful-looking tree. Jesse, the boy, refuses to let Winnie have a drink.
As a mysterious man in a yellow suit appears in the area, asking questions, Winnie learns why she wasn't allowed to drink. The water is a fountain of youth, and if she drunk one drop, or even drank one drip, but not if she was drenched with one droop, she would be forever preserved at the age of ten, never growing old, incapable of dying. Jesse tells her that if she waits seven years and drinks then, she and he can be married and travel the world together forever. Winnie eventually dismisses this idea, grows old and dies (I am not making this up - Natalie Babbitt is!)
I gave up on this about two-thirds in because it was boring the living waters out of me. One of the biggest problems was Jesse's proposal. Jesse only appeared to be seventeen, In reality, he was, I don’t know, in his eighties or something? It’s a bit vague - at least in the part to which I listened. But he was, at any rate, considerably older than Winnie. This is a common problem - common these days in vampire stories - where writers stupidly think that if a person looks like they’re a teenager, then they must have the mentality of a teenager and behave just like a teen, longing for other teens, both socially and amorously, regardless of how long they've actually been living.
It’s moronic and makes those writers look like idiots. Other than Charlie Chaplin, what rational, intelligent eighty-year-old would actually want to marry a seventeen-year old who, smart and personable as a seventeen-year-old might be, has done very little living, has little experience of the world, has a fundamentally different mindset, and has so much maturing and growing to do? With some charming exceptions, teenagers are essentially as well as legally juvenile and not really that appealing to older people - except perhaps on a purely sexual level, so eww!
That aside aside, the story wasn't that well written, and the plot was trite and predictable, so I can’t recommend this one.
