Stories 4 You: 04/17/19

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Natalie Babbitt

Christina Weigand

I’m going to continue my Author series with Natalie Babbitt. Until recently I must admit I had never heard of Ms. Babbitt. That is a sad thing, because recently when I heard about one of her books Tuck Everlasting, I was surprised that I hadn’t heard about her. So I went out and found a used copy of her book and purchased it. I have yet to start reading it because my TBR pile is quite high. I did however read the back cover blurb and realized it was a book I wanted to read and an author I wanted to know more about.

Natalie Zane Moore was born July 28, 1932 in Dayton, Ohio. She went to school in Cleveland and later Smith College in Northampton Massachusetts and Kirkland College in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. She married Samuel Babbitt and they lived in New Haven Connecticut where they had three children.

Her first journey into the writing and illustrating world, The Forty Ninth Magician, a picture book, was a collaboration with her husband.

After this book was published her husband became too busy to collaborate, so he encouraged her to continue writing and illustrating. She wrote two short books in verse before moving onto children’s novels.

In 1970 she published Knee-Knock Rise and was awarded a Newbury Honor in 1971.

After that she went onto write many children’s novels including Tuck Everlasting in 1975, named ALA Notable book,

and The Eyes of the Amaryllis in 1977 and many others.

Both Tuck Everlasting and The Eyes of the Amaryllis were adapted as movies. Tuck Everlasting was also adapted as a Broadway musical.

Along with being a writer she was also an illustrator. Valerie Worth wrote Small Poems along with a couple of others which she asked Babbitt to illustrate.

In 2016 Babbitt was diagnosed with lung cancer and died at her home in Hamden, Connecticut on October 31, 2016. So even though her body was not immortal her works drink from the spring of immortality and leave a lasting legacy for children across the world.