I am 11 years old in Brooklyn, sitting in my classroom—the dark one on the first floor—with a group of classmates who have clashed all year long. Friendships fraying, puberty unevenly invading our bodies in ways both private and horrifically public. Nothing is sweet or fun or easy like it was just last year now that this is happening to us and we’re in a building with the “big kids” all the way through 12th grade, and I’m having my first glimpse at the thought: *Maybe growing up isn’t so great after all.* It’s against this backdrop that I first read *Tuck Everlasting* which follows a 10 year old girl named Winnie who stumbles upon a magical spring of eternal life and is kidnapped by the immortal family who guards it because they don’t know what else to do with her while a mysterious man in a suit hunts them all down so he can bottle up their secret source for his own profit.…