This week, we had something magnificent happen in our classroom, and as author Natalie Babbit once said, “Like all magnificent things, it is very simple.” Before I get to this however, I’ll tell you our backstory. In the fall, my fifth graders worked through the transformative novel, Tuck Everlasting. If you’ve not had the pleasure to read it, I suggest you do, as it is one of “those” books, those that have the power to change you for having read them.My students felt the power of this story, as it begs the reader to grapple with the debate of whether living forever would be a blessing or a curse. Through her wisdom-infused pen, Natalie Babbit singlehandedly eased the troubled connotations associated with death, by helping young readers to understand that, “Life has got to be lived, no matter how long or short. You’ve got to take what comes,” and furthermore, “You can’t have living without dying.”
So after having wonderful discussions, and grand conversations in the form of a Socratic Seminar, our unit was coming to a close. We had already found and studied the great ways that Tuck Everlasting had expanded beyond the book into the global community, being made into a movie twice and appearing on Broadway for the first time ever this past season. I thought we would end with a grand finale, which would be a great real-life extension to write to the author and tell her all the ways her words affected our thinking.
Ironically, after our letters were written, we discovered that Natalie Babbit had died only the week before. Here it was, that this woman whose words helped the students understand death, had passed into eternity just days before we contacted her. Heartbroken, the students and I mourned the loss of such an influential writer, but then decided that we would try to send our letters anyway, to her husband. After some searching, I located the Harvard graduate, author and professor, Samuel Babbit, and got his address. The students made bereavement cards for him and we sent both our letters and the cards to his home address.
Imagine our delight when Tuesday, after returning from break, there was a letter in our mailbox from Mr. Samuel Babbit himself! He addressed the letters, talked about how his wife’s words would live on and inspire though she was gone herself, and thanked us for the kind words and appreciative condolences. The kids were thrilled that he took the time to write, and I guarantee that this tiny, magnificent thing, will tie literature to their hearts for many years to come. Mr. Babbit’s letter brought our wheel of learning full circle, and again, Natalie’s words reminded us why, “Everything’s a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping … Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way it is.”
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