Saturday Morning Cartoons- Tuck Everlasting and The (Not So) Superheroes

Babbitt, Natalie and Woodman-Maynard, K.  (illustrator)

Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel
September 2, 2025 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Babbitt's beloved classic, it gets a beautiful graphic novel adaptation. 

Winnie Foster chafes at all of the restrictions that her mother and grandmother place on her in the early 1900s. She longs to run away from Treegap, especially in the heat of the summer when everything feels oppressive. When she ventures into the woods, she meets Jesse Tuck, who claims to be 104 years old. Winnie, at ten, knows this isn't true. When Jesse's mother, Mae, shows up, she says that Winnie has to come with them because they have a secret that the world mustn't know. Winnie's a little scared, but also wants adventure in her life, and Mae is a comfortable sort of woman who doesn't make her afraid. Winnie learns the Tuck's secret; they drank from a spring in her family's woods 87 years ago, and haven't aged since. Miles, Jesse's brother, is sad about this because he had gotten married, and his wife and children got to be older than he was, and left him because they thought he had made a pact with the devil. Angus, the father, is somewhat bitter, because he is left out of the cycle of life and will never die, since the spring keeps the family members from experiencing injury. A man in a yellow suit has spoken to Winnie, and sees her with the Tucks. He has come to investigate stories his grandmother told him, and offers the Tucks information about where Winnie is in exchange for the land where the spring is located. They agree, and the man and a police officer head off to retrieve Winnie. The man offers the Tucks a deal; they will come and serve as an example of what the water can do, and he will sell the water to a select few for a very high price. When they decline, he threatens to make Winnie drink the water instead. Angered, Mae hits him in the head with the butt of a rifle just as the policeman arrives on his horse. She is jailed, and will most likely hang for her crime. Winnie returns home, but knows that she must save Mae. They manage to get her out, and the family must leave town. Jesse has given Winnie a bottle of the water, asking her to drink it when she is 16, and the two of them can spend their lives together, traveling the world. We find that she doesn't do this, pouring the water on a toad that is  in danger instead. In an epilogue, the Tucks come back to Treegap and find her tombstone that tells of her long life as a friend, wife and mother. 

Strengths: I rarely rave about the beauty of writing in middle grade books, but Babbitt's prose is so beautiful that I couldn't envision this book as a graphic novel. To my great delight, Woodman-Maynard includes key portions of the text in her gorgeous illustrations. These have an appropriate soft and dreamy quality, and it made me ridiculously happy to find out that she hand painted all of the book in watercolors. Really, this couldn't have been digitally colored. The story follows the original (which was a little more violent than I remembered!), and is a great way to introduce this timeless tale to a new generation of readers. Both of my daughters own a copy of this, and have reread it many times. If you are involved with children's literature and haven't read this one, pick up a copy somewhere right away! If you want to watch the movie, don't look at the 2002 theatrical release; hunt down the 1981 made for television version, where Winnie is ten instead of 16. 
Weaknesses: I may be imagining this, but there seemed to be a missing scene at a fair, when one of the boys falls off... the Ferris wheel? Since the symbolism of wheels figures largely, and this seemed like a pivotal scene, I was suprised it was left out. I could be wrong, because I thought Winnie put the water on a turtle instead of a toad. 

What I really think: I am not only buying a copy of this, but also a copy of the 50th Anniversary Edition, which still has Babbitt's original artwork on the cover. The graphic novel includes a picture of Babbitt's house (that is now under a reservoir!) that looks just like this. This is such a sad and touching story that I can't bear to think about what the Tuck's lives would be like if they were still around today. So much change, and so much harder to move about undetected! 

Haddow, Swapna. The (Not So) Superheroes (The Terrible Trio#1)

September 2, 2025 by Scholastic Paperbacks

ARC provided by Scholastic

When the Powers That Be agree that all animals can have super powers, Zeb the Zebra, Barry the Lemur, and Margarine (Marge) the Penguin get stuck at the end of the line behind an enormous rhinoceros. They almost don't get powers, but when they convince the bestower to forgo watching his favorite show, Watching Paint dry, and give them powers, they end up with ones that are a bit odd. Marge gets the ability to make mac and cheese out of anything by stirring briskly, Barry gets beautiful handwriting, and Zeb gets the ability to blend in with crosswalks, which he can do anyway. The three really still want to be super heroes, so apply to work at the Superheroes Cafe. They are hired, since super heroes don't want to work there. Marge and Barry are fairy happy, but Zeb constantly feels like a failure. When Zeb overhears a chicken with super strength talking about a plot for a very dangerous crocodile to escape from prison, the trio decides that they will be the ones to save the day. They manage to get into the prison by offering up a pot of mac and cheese, but Barry and Marge chicken out. Zeb perseveres, and his superpower ends up helping to capture the evil crocodile. Will the trio find more goofy adventures where they can use their powers?

While the goofy, slapstick humor of this was more on the elementary side of the Pilkey Line, I'm sure my incoming 6th graders will fight to have my ARC of this title. Hand this one to fans of Krosoczka's 2013 The Platypus Police Squad, Blabey's Cat on the Run, or Barnett and Harris' The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza.