Tuck Everlasting Chapter 3 – A Lesson in “Showing” and Not “Telling”

Many of us write, but few of us create literature. Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting is literature. She had created literature before Chapter 1 of the book, Within a few words, Babbitt wrote volumes–in the Prologue. Within a few words, Tuck Everlasting had become more than a mere spattering of words. Natalie Babbitt said the following about…

Tuck Everlasting Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of Tuck Everlasting provides us with a beginning Character Study of Mae Tuck, just as is about to enter a new chapter of her life — a New Dawn. And so, at dawn, that day in the first week of August, Mae Tuck woke up and lay for a while beaming at the…

Tuck Everlasting Chapter 1

Chapter 1 of Tuck Everlasting contrasts the eternal, perfect freedom of nature, as opposed to the rigid, confined existence outside of nature. Treegap is the town at the edge of the Wood or Nature.  “The road that led to Treegap had been trod out long before by a herd of cows who were, to say…

Tuck Everlasting – Prologue

Prologue “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. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of…

The Relatives Came – Perfect Picture Book – Why?

The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant Illustrated by Stephen Gammel Cynthia Rylant has written a plethora of successful books for children, and Stephen Gammel’s illustrations never cease to amaze me. I have several books written by Rylant, and I have several books illustrated by Gammel. In my opinion, The Relatives Came is a perfect merger…