Tuck Everlasting - Modern Fantasy/Science Fiction Literature

Tuck Everlasting is written by Natalie Babbitt. It begins by telling of three separate events; Mae Tuck riding on horse horse to the edge of Treegap, Winnie Foster thinking of running away from home, and a stranger and the Foster's gate looking for someone. When Winnie runs away from home, she stumbles upon Jesse Tuck drinking from a spring in the well. She wants a drink but he will not allow her so he waits for his mother, Mae, and brother, Miles. They proceed to tell her that if she drinks from this spring that she will live forever and never die. They tell her all the stories about their life; falling from trees, eating poisonous toadstools, and even being shot without it hurting them. They have not aged for the past eighty-seven years. They decide they must take her with them back home to meet Angus Tuck. They did not realize that they were being spied on and followed by the stranger at the beginning of the book. When they arrive home, the stranger steals the Tuck's horse and rides back to Winnie's home to tell her family where she is at. The Tuck's take good care of Winnie and all they want to do is explain the importance of not telling anyone about the spring. The next morning, the stranger returns to get Winnie and take her home. He has made a deal with her family to return her in exchange for the woods by her house where the spring is at. He tells them of his plan to sell water from the spring to people. The Tuck's do not think this should happen because they realize the stress and anguish of living forever. Mae hits the man in the head with her gun, and he ends up dying later, but the constable the man brought with him sees the whole thing. He arrests Mae and takes her and Winnie back to town. The Tuck's come to rescue Mae and Winnie comes up with a plan to sneak into the jail and take Mae's place in the cell so they can escape. Winnie knows that Mae cannot be sent to the gallows to hang because all of the townspeople will see that she cannot die. Jesse gives Winnie a bottle of water from the spring so that when she is seventeen she can drink it and live forever with Jesse. Many years later, Mae and Angus come back to town and see Winnie's tombstone. They see she lived a normal life and never drank from the spring. 

I would have students create their own blog while reading this book. At the end of every chapter they could write about connections they have made to their own life or other literature. They can make predictions about what they think will happen later in the book. Also, they could write about their feelings towards the book; whether they think they would like living forever or not and if the Tuck's are making the right choices by hiding the spring. At the end of the book, they would blog about what they would do if they were in Winnie's place. They could say whether or not they would have drank from the spring and if they would have told others about it. They could also write the next chapter of the book talking about what the Tuck's were currently doing and how their lives compared now to what they used to be. It could be a history lesson incorporating the Tuck's lives into any certain time period that they are studying about.