Literati Diary: Tuck Everlasting; Between the Novel and Movie

On the fifth semester of my study in UPI, I attended class of Children and Adolescent Literature. The subject was taught by Mr. Ahmad Bukhori, one of my favorite lectures. During the study, I learn about some of children literature like novel, poem, song, movie, and many more. One literary work that I remember until now is Tuck Everlasting
. Tuck Everlasting is a novel by Natalie Babbitt. The story is about Tuck Family who were immortal because they had drank kind of immortal water from a magic springs. One day, the youngest son of the family, Jesse, met a rich and beautiful girl named Winifred Foster at the magic springs which is located on Foster's wood. Winnie was watching Jesse drank from the springs and she was lost
her heart at once. Winnie was falling in love with Jesse and vice versa. When Winnie wants to drank the magic water, Jesse and Miles (Jesse's brother who was suddenly appeared)prevented her and kidnapped her. They bring
Winnie to Tuck's house in order to meet their parents, Angus Tuck and Mae Tuck. Angus Tuck asked Winnie not to tell anybody about the magic springs because if she does, people would do anything to get the water. And that is so terrible. This
story has a villain, the man in the yellow suit (his name was not told until the end of the story). The man in the yellow suit told Foster family that Winnie had been kidnapped by the Tuck family. He said that Winnie was in danger because they were
really bad guy. In the fact, the tuck family was feeling happy of Winnie's visit because they had never have gust before. The tuck family loved Winnie. The man in the yellow suit want to exchange Winnie and the Foster's wood because he want to own the magic srings. Then he came to Tuck's house to get Winnie, but Mae accidentally killed him because he wanted to harm Winnie. So, Mae was put into jail and supposed to be punished in the gallows. Winnie helped Tuck family to saved Mae. After that Tucks leaved the Town. Jesse gave Winnie a bottle of magic water. H
e wanted her to drink it so that they can be together forever. Someday when the situation is right, he would take Winnie with him. The ending of the story is quite surprising, because Winnie was choose not to drink the water and live forever. Winnie
remembers about Angus' explanation when she was living in Tuck's house. Angus said told Winnie that life is a wheel; birth, pain, happiness, oldness, and death are parts of the wheel. There are no good to be immortal, because when people are immortal they have no changes. They would never grow like human, just stay in one condition, like a rock in the road side.
In my opinion, the story is great, because I got many lessons from it.
Mr. Abu also brought the movie to the class so that the student can watch it together. There are some additions in the movie that make it much more interesting than the novel.
One of them is the part when Jesse taught Winnie to swim in the beautiful waterfall, then they were kissing. In the novel there is no kissing scene, of course because the novel was written for kids. In the movie, the story become more emotional because it highlights the romantic relationship between Jesse and Winnie.
It is proved by the ending of the story. In the novel, Angus and Tuck was visiting Winnie's grave and Angus said "good girl" because he glad that Winnie choose not to be immortal and turned into 'the rock on the road side'. While in the movie, Jesse is the one who found Winnie's grave in the town. Both of the novel and the movie are adorable. I found that it is not important how long we life, the important thing is how we spend our (limited) times.

here is the book's cover