The Bridge to Terabithia

Title: The Bridge to Terabithia
Author: Katherine Paterson
Publisher: Crowell, October 21, 1997
Reading Level: 3rd and up
Pages: 144
Genre: Fantasy









Summary:

Jesse is the only boy of 6 children. His mother favors the girls and his father is always away. His little sister, May Belle, adores him. One day a girl moves into town. Leslie is the daughter of two writers and they are quite wealthy. Jesse and Leslie soon become great friends. Jesse shares his love of writing, and Leslie shares her love of fantasy. Across the creek with a rope swing they enter into their imaginiary country, Terabithia, where they are King and Queen. They face their real life problems there, like the bully. Leslie gets Jesse a set of watercolors and tube paints for Christmas and Jesse gets her a dog that they name P.T. (Prince Terrian, he is their royal guard.). Miss Edmunds, the music teacher, invites Jesse to come to an art show with her. He was a crush so he goes. While he is gone, Leslie goes to Terabithia. The rope breaks and she drowns, and Jesse has a hard time getting over his grief. He goes to Terabithia to make a cerimonial wreath and he hears a cry for help. May Belle is stuck! He saves her and they head back home. Leslie's parents decided to leave and Jesse askes to use some wooden planks. They say he can have anything, so he makes a bridge to Terabithia. He takes May Belle there and names her the new Queen because he knows that's what Leslie would want.

My Reaction:

This was a very good read! It was definitely sad when Leslie died, and I didn't know how Jesse was going to pull through it, but he did. I loved how he made May Belle the new Queen!

Potential Problems:

A death might not go over very well with a child, it would just depend. Also there is a school bully that won't leave Jesse alone for the frist part of the book.

Recommendations:

I would recommend this to anybody, especially 6th to 8th grade. I think that age group would be able to relate more and they would get a good message out of it. Anybody could read it, and should, though, because it is very well written.