The following is an excerpt from the 40th anniversary edition of Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting, for which Wicked author Gregory Maguire wrote the introduction. Below, Maguire cites the Young Adult novel’s merits as a work with rich and timeless themes.
Time, like story, moves only forward.
Once you open a book and read the first line — like my six-word sentence above — you can never un-read it. You might forget it till you see it again, but you can never return to the state of total unknowing.
The same holds true for storytelling.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I am the sort who tries very hard not to read the front flap of a dust jacket. Those beckoning paragraphs often give away the plot. Consequently, I avoid reviews, blurbs, jacket copy, and forewords whenever I can. I prefer to explore a text on my own, to discover its secrets for myself. No spoilers.
If you’ve never read Tuck Everlasting before, and you feel as I do, why not let the author of this book, Natalie Babbitt, share this story at her own pace and discretion? I remember what it means to approach this book for the first time, having no notion what lies ahead.
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Okay. Maybe you’re one of those people, like Winnie, who doesn’t always follow the rules. Even if you’ve never read Tuck Everlasting before, you may not have taken my advice. You may have ripped ahead this far into my foreword before slipping into the novel itself.
If so, you’ll be relieved to learn that I’ve worked hard not to give the plot away. I’ve hinted about a lot of things, but I’ve done so slyly. After you do finish reading the novel, come back and reread this foreword again. The words will be familiar to you, but they’ll mean something different because you’ll be a different person. You’ll be a person who has now read Tuck Everlasting.
Natalie Babbitt is a distant but dear friend of mine. At the fortieth anniversary of the publication of this celebrated and beloved novel, I’m honored to provide these few comments to help put her achievement in perspective. Not that it needs perspective. This is one of the most focused novels I’ve ever met.
This novel will live for a long time. Maybe not forever. Very few things last forever. If I had to make a bet about lasting value, though, I’d bet that Tuck Everlasting will continue to intrigue readers young and old — not only as long as readers are opening it for the first time, but as often as readers pick it up to reread.
