I remember reading Tuck Everlasting when I was in school, and I happened on this graphic novel adaptation recently at the local library and checked it out.
0-year-old Winifred Foster strains against the strictness of her mother, and one day decides to explore the local woods. She meets what she assumes is a young man, and when she asks him his age he tells her 104 but quickly changes his response to 17. She also sees him drinking from a small spring but when she tries to take a sip, he blocks her way and tells her a wild tale.
He and his family drank from that same water decades ago, and they have since not aged at all and also learned that they can also withstand mortal injuries. They view their condition as a plight not a blessing, speaking about what it is like having people and the world change around them while they remain unchanged.
Winifred promises to keep their secret, but she also plots to maybe drink from the spring herself someday, a matter which causes her much deliberation. To complicate matters further, there is also a stranger in town who seems to know about the family and their spring, and he is seeking to locate it so he can sell the water to the highest bidders.
This adaptation of the classic story about a young girl who happens upon a family who have seemingly gained eternal life by drinking from a magic spring is a thoughtful and evocative meditation on mortality and what makes life worthwhile. The artwork incorporates some of the original text and also conveys the narrative in ways that take advantage of graphic novel conventions. In an era of cash-grab, slapdash "adaptations," this one builds from and augments the original.
K. Woodman-Maynard wrote and drew this book with much feedback and interaction with the original author Natalie Babbit's family. She also adapted another classic novel, The Great Gatsby, into graphic novel form. She speaks about her work in adapting Tuck Everlasting in this interview.
This book has been very well reviewed, appearing on several end-of-year "best of" lists. In a starred entry, Kirkus Reviews summed up, "as wise and wonderful as the original." April Spisak wrote that the "illustrations do their intended work of filling in the rest, drawings that tell a story of longing, danger, loss, and hope as much as the text." In an another starred review from School Library Journal, Kasey Swords wrote, "Woodman-Maynard achieves the seemingly impossible task of enhancing a much beloved classic."
Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and they provide a preview and more information about it here.
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