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By
Cynthia Leitich Smithfor
Cynsations“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.”
--Tuck Everlasting
'Tuck Everlasting' Author Natalie Babbitt, Of Hamden, Dies At Age 84 by the Associated Press from The Hartford Courant. Peek: "Babbitt's literary career started in 1966, when she illustrated a children's book written by her husband and was encouraged by its editor to continue writing and illustrating children's books herself."
Obituary: Natalie Babbitt by Shannon Maughan from Publishers Weekly. Peek: "The subject matter—is living forever a good thing? —was somewhat controversial when the book [Tuck Everlasting] was published in 1975, especially in schools, but strong word-of-mouth and support from educators and librarians helped it grow into an enduring favorite."
Tuck Everlasting author Natalie Babbitt dies at 84 from The Guardian. Peek: "The 1975 novel, which has sold over 3.5m copies...has been adapted into two movies and a Broadway play..she was a National Book Award finalist for
The Devil’s Storybook in 1975."
Cynsational NotesShe received many honored including a Newbery Honor for
Knee-Knock Rise (FSG, 1971) and the inaugural E.B. White Award in 2013.
What is your favorite literary quote? LeVar Burton, former host of the Reading Rainbow TV show, stars in a BuzzFeed video called “11 Of The Most Beautiful Sentences In Literature.”
In the video embedded above, Burton recites sentences written by William Shakespeare, Maurice Sendak, and Natalie Babbitt. Click here to watch a video where Burton tackles a series of bibliophile-themed dilemmas. (via BuzzFeed)
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on 4/19/2015
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"These stories kept me up way past my bedtime and still hold places of honor on my bookshelf."
Writing voice.
Hard to define.
Difficult (impossible?) to teach.
But there's nothing I love more in a book than a distinctive writing voice.
I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it. Or, more correctly, I know it when I HEAR it.
And if you think about it, that is really the literal meaning of the word "voice" - something that you HEAR.
To me, a distinct writing voice is one that sounds unique. It has a rhythm and flow and melody to it that sets it apart from another author's writing voice.
So here are a few examples of voice that I love:
From Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall (even the TITLE has a wonderful voice):
He was homely and plain, and he had a terrible holler and a horrid smell.
and...
There will be Sarah’s sea, blue and gray and green, hanging on the wall. And songs, old ones and new. And Seal with yellow eyes. And there will be Sarah, plain and tall.
From Cynthia Rylant's Missing May: Whirligigs of Fire and Dreams, glistening coke bottles and chocolate milk cartons to greet me. I was six years old and I had come home.
and... Home was, still is, a rusty old trailer stuck on the face of a mountain in Deep Water, in the heart of Fayette County. It looked to me, the first time, like a toy that God had been playing with and accidentally dropped out of heaven. Down and down and down it came and landed, thunk, on this mountain, sort of cockeyed and shaky and grateful to be all in one piece.
From Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane:
Lolly was a lumpy woman who spoke too loudly and who wore too much lipstick.
and...
The days passed. The sun rose and set and rose and set again and again. Sometimes the father came home and sometimes he did not. Edward’s ears became soggy and he did not care. His sweater had almost completely unraveled and it didn’t bother him. He was hugged half to death and it felt good. In the evenings, at the hands of Bryce, at the ends of the twine, Edward danced and danced.
From Kate DiCamillo's Flora and Ulysses:
He looked exactly like a villain.
That’s what Flora’s brain thought.
But her heart, her treacherous heart, rose up joyfully inside of her at the sight of him.
From Natalie Lloyd's A Snicker of Magic: I think that’s one of the best feelings in the world, when you know your name is safe in another person’s mouth. When you know they’ll never shout it out like a cuss word, but say it or whisper it like a once-upon-a-time.
and... Lonely had followed me around for so long. That word was always perched somewhere close, always staring down at me, waiting to pounce out my joy.
From Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting:
The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.
#16 Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (1975)
87 points
Imagine coming upon a fountain of youth in a forest. To live forever–isn’t that everyone’s ideal? 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. Intense and powerful, exciting and poignant, Tuck Everlasting will last forever–in the reader’s imagination. – Kristi Hazelrigg
A beautiful story about mortality. Gets you thinking without being morbid. – Nicole Johnston
Wise and engrossing. The writing burns from the first page. – Emily Myhr
I did not think that I liked Tuck Everlasting when I was a kid. I was a sensitive child, which is to say, a wimp. Happy endings were far preferable to unhappy. Life was to be tied up in a neat little bow, thank you very much. None of this moral complexity business. And unhappy children’s literature? Every time I met an ambiguous ending or one that didn’t ascribe to my strict sense of how-a-story-should-end (Stuart Little stands out in the mind) I was perturbed. Seriously perturbed. Tuck Everlasting perturbed me. Yet even as I lamented the lack of a joyous finale as well as the fate of the poor eternal toad at the end (the true victim of the book, in my eyes) I was fascinated with this story. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. Here was a book that brought up an issue that humanity has grappled with since the dawn of time. I couldn’t look away. I still can’t.
The plot from American Writers for Children Since 1960: Fiction reads, “The heroine of Tuck Everlasting, Winnie Foster, is an overprotected child who inhabits a no nonsense house guarded by ‘a capable iron fence.’ Unaware that the spring of eternal life quite literally bubbles in the nearby wood, Winnie has lived in the protected oasis of her home for ten years. When she finally ventures into the woods, she is kidnapped by the Tuck family, who have innocently drunk from the fountain of youth with pernicious results. They learn that immortality without growth, change, or death is an infernal paradise–a curse, not a blessing. The Tucks realize that their secret has cosmic implications, that it must be guarded from the villainous ‘man-in-the-yellow-suit’ at all costs. When this evil person threatens to use the secret to acquire wealth and power for himself and to use Winnie as a freak, after he forces her to drink the water, Mae Tuck kills him in an act of violent retribution. While the act resembles the swift justice of a folktale, it has complicated consequences. Winnie in her turn must act to save Mae, whom she loves, and to protect the secret, which she is not sure she believes. Eventually the reader learns that Winnie has embraced her mortality and affirmed her humanity, her place on the wheel, by choosing to become ‘Winnie Foster Jackson, Dear Wife, Dear Mother’.”
Back in 2000 Betsy Hearne interviewed Natalie Babbitt in the March/April 2000 issue of Horn Book about the book for its 25th Anniversary. About the story’s creation Babbitt said, “It was hard to find the right way to begin it. There were a couple of other beginnings that aren’t around anymore, because there were so many piles of paper that I finally gave everything to the University of Connecticut. But once I got started it was easy–partly because of the setting, which is a real place. It’s always fun to write about a real place. In upstate New York we had a cabin on a pond, exactly like the Tucks’. . . . Everything about that place in the book is true
Ouch: A Tale From Grimm
Retold by Natalie Babbitt
Illustrated by Fred Marcellino
Michael Di Capua Books, 1998
In Ouch author Natalie Babbitt (best known for her novel Tuck Everlasting) retells one of the lesser known Grimm fairy tales. It's a fantastic little story focussing on Marco, a baby born as a "nobody" who eventually becomes a "somebody".
It's predicted that the boy Marco is destined to marry a princess when a birthmark in the shape of a crown is found on his bottom shortly after birth. When the unimpressed king finds out about this he dons a disguise and buys the baby under the pretext of raising it to be fit for royalty...then promptly dumps the child in the river.
Baby Marco is found by a village miller, who raises him as his own. Many years later the king finds out about the survival of the boy - now a man - and again tries to have him killed. When his plan backfires and Marco marries the princess, the king decides to send him on a quest. The perilous mission involves journeying directly to hell and stealing three hairs from the Devil's head. Will Marco be able to succeed (with the help of an unlikely ally) and return unharmed? And what will become of the conniving king?
I love this story. It's told in a very entertaining fashion and accompanied by some truly brilliant pictures (drawn by the incredibly talented Fred Marcellino). If you enjoy fairy tales, or the odd story about the king of darkness, check out Ouch! You won't be disappointed.
C.
by Natalie BabbittFSG 1974 Ten little short story gems concerning the Devil himself and his inability to corrupt good souls or fully control bad ones.I stumbled onto this (as with many older titles these days) in an sales alcove at my local library. Discarded, withdrawn, and donated books are in constant rotation, and with prices between twenty-five cents and a dollar it's impossible to resist.
First Book recently had the pleasure of speaking with author and illustrator Natalie Babbitt , the author of the classic ALA Notable Children’s book Tuck Everlasting and Newbery Honor Book Kneeknock Rise, among many other titles for children. She is also a member of the board of directors of the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, a non-profit organization whose primary focus is to make issues related to young people’s literacy, literature, and libraries an ongoing priority on our national agenda.
Click below to hear our conversation with Ms. Babbitt about the mysteries of her home state of Ohio, the joy of illustrating, and her latest work, “Seven From Ohio,” featured in the new book Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out just published by Candlewick Press!
P.S. Don’t forget — if you plan to be in the Washington, D.C. area on September 27th, don’t miss other contributors to Our White House when they discuss its creation at the National Book Festival on the Mall!
Speaking of the most recent Publisher's Weekly, check it out:
Natalie Babbitt has written her first novel for children in 25 years, and Michael di Capua Books at Scholastic will publish it this May. Jack Plank Tells Tales tells of an out-of-work pirate in search of a new career. Babbitt has illustrated her middle-grade novel with black-and-white drawings throughout. She is the author of 14 books for children, including Tuck Everlasting , The Search for Delicious and Knee-Knock Rise, which won a Newbery Honor in 1971.
Okay. Admit it. You didn't know she was still kicking around, did you? I just realized that she hasn't published a book since I was 3-years-old. Mine eyes are now firmly fixed on every ARC that comes in my door. Scholastic's probably doing the happy happy joy joy dance as we speak.
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I haven't seen this one. Some Babbit wears well (Tuck Everlasting), some doesn't (The Search for Delicious). I'll have to see if this one is still in print.
i do believe both this and the sequel are still in print. or at least readily available online at finer book emporiums.