Tuck Everlasting: 40th Anniversary Blog Tour

Today I’m thrilled to be a part of the promotional tour for the 40^th Anniversary Edition of Tuck Everlasting. Confession: I was not a big reader in school. I read what was assigned and not a page more because I found required reading to be an absolute chore; the fact that I was going to be tested on my ability to cough up the material in a final exam sucked all the fun out of the characters and story (Crime and Punishment haunts me still). There were very, VERY few books I read in middle and high school that had me reading ahead of what was assigned, but one such book was Tuck Everlasting, and it remains a favorite of mine to this day.

As part of the tour we’ve been asked to address a question posed by the book: What if you could live forever?

I’m going to tackle this question in two parts: The first, my answer to this question as it would have been in 7^th grade when I first read this book, and second, my answer now as an adult.

In 7^th grade, I can honestly say I would have opted to drink from the spring immediately (well, maybe postponed it for a few years until I was a touch older since you remain the age you are when you take that first sip) and live forever. When I was that age, it felt like the whole world was before me and there couldn’t possibly be enough days in a lifetime to do everything I wanted to do. My answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" changed weekly then, and I know my younger self would have done a happy dance at the thought of being able to be a vet, and then an Olympic equestrian showjumper, and then a movie star, and then an artist, and then whatever else struck my fancy instead of having to buckle down and focus one just one. I would never run out of time, so I could be any and all professions if I so chose.

And I could travel endlessly! I could visit places like this:

 And stay weeks or even years. Then I could move on to the next place:

And the next:

And stay there even longer (seriously, I could spend months getting lost in Catherine’s Palace)! Meet new people and do strange, wonderful new things without worrying about time or money, because when you live forever you have time to accumulate whatever funds you might need. Obviously.

Now though, my answer would be quite different. I wouldn’t drink from the spring if you paid me to. I think so much of the joy in life comes from the fact that our time is finite, and we experience certain things more profoundly given our chances of doing so again are unlikely. People say things are “once in a lifetime” experiences and all the more special as a result, and I can’t help but think they wouldn’t be as magical or memorable if you had hundreds of lifetimes to check things off a bucket list that is in fact not a bucket list at all. It would just be a list of things you'd undoubtedly have time to do.

After the changes I’ve made in my life this past year, starting a new business and taking my career in a direction that's better for both my creativity and my sanity, I’m finally more content and comfortable in my life than I have been in a long time. I have goals I want to achieve in the coming years, but I know the kind of person I am, and if I had all the time in the world to do them, they’d never get done ;-) Living forever would simply be a never-ending stretch of procrastination, and there's no fun to be had in that for me!

So to wrap this ramble up, if you asked the 7^th grade version of me to drink from the spring, she would have jumped on that without so much as a second thought, but adult me is happy with life just the way it is (except I wouldn't mind if Chris Hemsworth showed up on my doorstep tomorrow to profess his undying love for me. Just saying.) :-)

What do you guys think? Live forever or take this one life and make the most of it?

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TUCK EVERLASTING

Blessed with—or doomed to—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. Complications arise when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune.

A brand-new introduction from Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked, and additional bonus materials make this special edition of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting a must-have for lovers of the book and a great way to introduce a new generation to a classic.

The 40th Anniversary edition releases January 20th, be sure and preorder your copy!