Summary Of Bridge To Terabithia By Katherine Paterson

Bridge to Terabithia written by Katherine Paterson in 1977 is about two lonely children who create a magical forest kingdom. Bridge to Terabithia tells a fascinating story of friendship, Paterson’s novel is a heart-warming story of two children who use each other’s strength to conquer and overcome their weaknesses (Bryson, n.d.). Bridge to Terabithia deals with real life situations and problems that many children between the ages of nine and twelve find tough to cope with (Bryson, n.d.).
The characters live in a small town called Lark Creek, Lark Creek is a small town in Virginia where people are slow to accept any form of change (Paterson, 1977). In Lark Creek people live on farms, work hard and struggle as they do not have many resources and people. However, Leslie and Jess are making do
with what resources they have, they have a rope swing, a creek, a grove and a forest (Shmoop.com, 2015).
Jess and Leslie possess imagination so powerful, magic turns the creek into a boundary between kingdoms, the forest into a sacred place and a puppy into a prince. Terabithia is a setting for ceremonies, battles and imagination (Shmoop.com, 2015). Jess tells us that ideas and morals from Terabithia bleed over into regular life in Lark Creek by the end of the book the reader sees him formularise the connections between the two regions, physically linking them by building a bridge (Sparknotes, 2015).
In the beginning of the book Jess is introduced to the reader and learn about Lark Creek and about Jess’s family life. Jess is not understood by his family, does not have any real friends and does not like school. Jess take out his feelings of being lonely, left out and frustration on setting himself a
goal of training to become the fastest runner in fifth grade. When Jess first comes face to face with Leslie he does not like her but they end up becoming best friends. Jess begins to doubt Leslie as an appropriate friend choice, at the beginning of the book his understanding of friendship is limited by gender. On their first day of school Leslie had ruined Jess’ dream of being the fastest runner (Shmoop.com, 2015). By losing the title of the fastest runner, Jess gains a surprising new friend. Jess and Leslie’s friendship strengthened. Jess got some exciting new, Miss Edmunds offers to take him out for a special day, he is so surprised that he forgets about his worry that it would not have been safe to go got Terabithia that say (Sparknotes, 2015). Throughout this time he thinks about how Leslie would react and how she would advise him in different situations. Little does he know that it will cost him something tremendous (Sparknotes, 2015). When Jess gets home he is told that Leslie drowned in the creek that morning trying to swing to Terabithia on the rope. Jess is completely devastated and goes through the stages of grief. Jess soon realises that he can only keep Leslie’s memory and his own newfound sense of self by continuing the fantasy of Terabithia. He makes his little sister May Belle Teribithia’s new queen, assuring that a part of Leslie will live on as well (Sparknotes, 2015).