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50 free Tuck Everlasting trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Tuck Everlasting is the rare children's novel that argues against living forever. Natalie Babbitt's 1975 book follows ten-year-old Winnie Foster into the wood her family owns but never enters, where a boy who claims to be 104 is drinking from a spring. It has sold more than five million copies, become a classroom staple and been filmed twice and staged on Broadway. These 50 questions cover the novel in detail, from Treegap and the music box to Mae's shotgun, the jail swap, the toad and the 1950 epilogue, plus Babbitt's life and awards, the 2002 Disney film with Alexis Bledel and Ben Kingsley, the $150,000 Buffalo film that came first, and the 2016 musical that closed after 39 performances. Every answer is cited to a page we checked. Play it solo, or print it for a book-club or classroom round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote Tuck Everlasting?
Natalie Babbitt
She had already won a Newbery Honor for Knee-Knock Rise in 1971.
Q 02In what year was the novel published?
1975
Farrar, Straus and Giroux published it; it has since sold over 5 million copies.
Q 03What is the central theme of the novel?
Immortality
The Tucks cannot age or die after drinking from a spring, and the book asks whether that is a blessing.
Q 04What is the name of the village where Winnie Foster lives?
Treegap
Her family is the oldest in town and owns the wood next to their house, though they never enter it.
Q 05How old is Winnie when the novel begins?
10
The 2002 film aged her up to fifteen and moved the story to 1914.
Q 06In what year does the main story of the novel take place?
1880
The Tucks drank from the spring 87 years earlier; the epilogue jumps to 1950.
Q 07What sound draws Winnie and the stranger toward the wood?
A music box
Mae Tuck's music box tune is the clue the man in the yellow suit has been chasing since childhood.
Q 08What does Winnie see Jesse Tuck doing when she first meets him?
Drinking from a spring
He stops her from drinking too, then panics when she mentions telling her father.
Q 09What age does Jesse first blurt out when Winnie asks how old he is?
104
He quickly corrects himself to seventeen, the age he has looked for decades.
Q 10How long ago did the Tucks drink from the spring, as of the novel's main story?
87 years
They were passing through the wood looking for land to farm.
Q 11How many years passed before the Tucks realized they were not aging?
Twenty
Miles's wife left him in that time, taking their two children.
Q 12What is the name of the Tuck family patriarch?
Angus
He hates being immortal and dreams of growing old and going to heaven.
Q 13What is Mae Tuck's relationship to Jesse?
His mother
She and Miles seize Winnie on the road and carry her home, pleading with her not to be frightened.
Q 14At what age does Jesse want Winnie to drink the spring water?
Q 21What does Winnie pour Jesse's bottle of spring water over?
A toad
She saves it from a dog; decades later Angus spots a toad on the road and muses that it must think it will live forever.
Q 22In the epilogue, what year do Mae and Angus return to the village?
1950
They learn the wood burned after a lightning strike in 1947 and was bulldozed for a gas station.
Q 23What now stands on the site of the wood when the Tucks return?
A gas station
Lightning struck and burned the wood in 1947, and the spring was lost with it.
How old was Winnie when she died, according to her gravestone in the novel?
Seventeen
Then, he says, they could stay the same age forever and marry.
Q 15What does the man in the yellow suit demand from the Fosters for returning Winnie?
Their wood
He already owns the horse he stole from the Tucks; the wood gives him legal possession of the spring.
Q 16How did the man in the yellow suit first learn the music box tune?
From his grandmother
Her friend had been Miles's wife, who fled a husband who had not aged in twenty years.
Q 17What does the man in the yellow suit plan to do with the spring water?
Sell it at a high price
He wants to sell it to 'people who deserve it', and make it 'very, very expensive'.
Q 18What does Mae hit the man in the yellow suit with?
A shotgun
She grabs it by the barrel and swings just as the constable arrives; the blow proves fatal.
Q 19What sentence does Mae face for killing the man in the yellow suit?
Hanging
The family realizes an execution would expose their secret when she fails to die.
Q 20How does Winnie help Mae escape from jail?
She takes Mae's place in the cell
Miles pries out the window, and in the dark the constable mistakes Winnie for Mae until morning.
78
She died in 1948, married and with grandchildren; the 2002 film's headstone instead says 100.
Q 25What trades is Miles Tuck trained in?
Carpenter and blacksmith
His wife believed he must have sold his soul to the devil to stay young after twenty years of marriage.
Q 26What are the names of Winnie's parents?
Betsy and Robert
Her grandmother also lives with them at the edge of Treegap.
Q 27What did the novel win in 1976 as best book for young people?
Christopher Award
It was also named an ALA Notable Book and received the Janusz Korczak Medal.
Q 28Where did the novel rank in School Library Journal's 2012 Top 100 Chapter Books?
16
A 2007 NEA poll also placed it among teachers' top 100 books for children.
Q 29Roughly how many copies has the novel sold?
Over 5 million
It has been called a classic of modern children's literature.
Q 30Who plays Winnie in the 2002 film?
Alexis Bledel
The Gilmore Girls star was joined by Jonathan Jackson as Jesse.