Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia - Book Report/Review Example

Bridge to Terabithia Children’s stories are often full of fantasy and make-believe, but quality literature typically offers a much deeper meaning to these flights of imagination. One example of this kind of quality children’s literature is Katherine Paterson’s book Bridge to Terabithia published in 1972. The story presented in this book is at once simple and powerful. Basically, it tells the story of a young boy living in rural Virginia whose world is transformed when a more educated young girl moves into his territory. Jesse Aarons is 10 years old and preparing himself to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade at the opening of the story. Although he has loved to draw pictures since he was very small, he is afraid to let anyone know of his talent or his hobby with the single exception of his music teacher, Miss Edmunds, who teaches every Friday afternoon. When Leslie Burke moves into the neighboring farm wearing strange clothes and beating all the boys at the races, she is the last person Jess feels he would be friends with. In spite of himself, though, he finds he is defending Leslie’s right to participate in the races or protecting her on the bus. In turn, Leslie introduces Jesse to the magic within himself that will help him overcome his fears and opens a new world of possibilities to him in the invention of their imaginary kingdom, Terabithia, which can only be reached by swinging across a creek bed on an old rope hung from a crab apple tree. This is an important element to understanding the significance of the secret location, yet is changed toward the end of the book when Jess builds a bridge across the creek bed in order to take his sister into his magic kingdom. By understanding the importance of the rope swing to the meaning of Terabithia, it might seem building a bridge to the kingdom would defeat its significance, yet the book illustrates how this is not the case. When Leslie first imagines the land of Terabithia, she also invents a magical entrance that has a tendency to test Jess’ resolve to enter the kingdom. This passage between worlds is described from its first introduction as a magical experience. “It was a glorious autumn day, and if you looked up as you swung, it gave you the feeling of floating. Jess leaned back and drank in the rich, clear color of the sky” (38). Despite the wonderful feeling of letting go that this activity provided, it nevertheless led into a world that frightened Jess and caused him to worry as the creek bed marked the line of demarcation between wild woodland and tamed farmland. “There were parts of the woods that Jess did not like. Dark places where it was almost like being under water, but he didn’t say so” (39). Thus, while the ride on the rope is described as exhilarating (46), it is also closely associated with a sense of danger. This becomes clear toward the end of the book as the creek becomes filled with floodwater and its associated debris: “the long dry bed of the creek was a roaring eight foot wide sea, sweeping before it great branches of trees, logs and trash, swirling them about like so many Egyptian chariots, daring them to try to confine it” (88). As such, it serves as a sort of rite of passage to conquer the fear and enter the kingdom. “[Jess] swung across the creek almost too disgusted with himself to be afraid. Halfway across he looked down and stuck his tongue out at the roaring below.” (91). Even when it is possible and perhaps even preferable to cross to Terabithia on foot, it is made clear that the swing on the rope is a necessary element of the make-believe: “It would have been easier [to walk through the gully], but he couldn’t escape the feeling that one must enter Terabithia only by the prescribed entrance” (60). The magical kingdom, just as with the kingdom of Narnia it is associated with in the book, requires an unusual means of entry in order to provide its makers with the necessary sense of awe and otherworldliness. Terabithia itself becomes exactly what the children felt they needed, a place of their own that can be messed up by no one because of its very secretive nature. Leslie tells Jess it would be “a whole secret country … and you and I would be the rulers of it” to which Jesse’s thoughts are revealed: “Her words stirred inside of him. He’d like to be a ruler of something. Even something that wasn’t real” (39). As the two children explore the deeper places of Terabithia, such as the pine forest, Jess begins to learn how to face his greater fears. Although he has always been afraid of the pine forest, Leslie shows him why it is not something to fear while still validating his suspicions that it is somehow haunted. “At first he heard only the stillness. It was the stillness that had always frightened him before, but this time it was like the moment after Miss Edmunds finished a song, just after the church hummed down to silence” (46-47). This sacred land is the place where Jess and Leslie go to escape the greater world on the outside, where parents uprooted your life to live in the country or were constantly angry with you and unfair in assigning household chores, but is also a place where magic happens, where Leslie can tell Jess the most amazing stories and Jess can see himself as something more than simply the only boy in the family, expected to do and be interested in only boy things. Midway through the book, when Leslie is finally getting the chance to know her father, Jess finds that the magic of Terabithia is only able to come alive because of the magic inside Leslie: “Jess tried going to Terabithia alone, but it was no good. It needed Leslie to make the magic. He was afraid he would destroy everything by trying to force the magic on his own when it was plain that the magic was reluctant to come for him” (65). However, by the end of the book, he is introducing this magic to his younger sister. “Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong, you had to move on … It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength” (126). With this realization, Jesse has passed into a world where the magic is his own and, like Leslie, he finds comfort in the idea of passing it along to a less enlightened mind. The bridge that Jesse builds over the creek bed at the end of the story replaces the rope swing that broke and caused Leslie’s death. Like the rope, the bridge itself is not exactly needed most of the year, built as it is when the creek is already subsiding. While it is true that the bridge does not provide the same sense of exhilaration and danger that was brought about while floating across on the rope swing, a bridge is equally symbolic of crossing a gulf of some sort. With the rope gone, it would seem Terabithia was lost forever to the imagination of the young girl who had lost her life in the swollen creek. However, Jess managed to find his way into the kingdom both without Leslie and without the rope when he crossed the creek on a small log to memorialize the queen and when P.T. crossed by swimming the creek. “They went into the castle stronghold. It was dark and damp, but there was no evidence there to suggest that the queen had died” (119). Without Leslie there to help him with the magic, Jesse was able to find an appropriate way of handling his grief on his own, crafting a beautiful ceremony on his own with which to bury his friend. With his newfound knowledge of the magic within him and realizing the passage into Terabithia had to be changed, Jesse built a magical bridge into his world by which he could safely introduce others to the world of the mind. It wasn’t as much the passage in that mattered, it was the magic of the mind itself that transported the body. “When he finished, he put flowers in her hair and led her across the bridge – the great bridge into Terabithia – which might look to someone with no magic in him like a few planks across a dry gully” (128). And the Terabithians were there, waiting for both Jess and May Belle to begin their journey together with the promise of yet another passing of the torch in May Belle’s future. Although the rope swing was an important element of bringing Jesse and Leslie to Terabithia, complete with its connotations of a rite of passage and a literal leaving of the ground to land in another place, Jess finally came to realize that this activity was little more than a symbolic gesture into a place that existed mostly within his own mind. Terabithia was a place where he was capable of being anything he wanted to be, even a king, which was as high as you could get, and where he had a responsibility to “handle with care – everything – even the predators” (126). Although he was not capable of entering this place on his own at first, the more he experienced with Leslie and thought about it on his own, the more he realized Leslie had simply opened a window for him into his own inner being, showing him the beauty, the wonder and the magic that existed within him as well as the true courage and compassion that were his particular strengths. Although he finally understood that everyone was afraid sometimes, it was what one did with that fear that determined how one lived his life. With these lessons in mind, Jesse was able to construct a bridge into Terabithia that would work for him as well as it would work for his younger sister, giving the magic a chance to grow. Works Cited Paterson, Katherine. Bridge to Terabithia. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1972. Read More

Thus, while the ride on the rope is described as exhilarating (46), it is also closely associated with a sense of danger. This becomes clear toward the end of the book as the creek becomes filled with floodwater and its associated debris: “the long dry bed of the creek was a roaring eight foot wide sea, sweeping before it great branches of trees, logs and trash, swirling them about like so many Egyptian chariots, daring them to try to confine it” (88). As such, it serves as a sort of rite of passage to conquer the fear and enter the kingdom.

“[Jess] swung across the creek almost too disgusted with himself to be afraid. Halfway across he looked down and stuck his tongue out at the roaring below.” (91). Even when it is possible and perhaps even preferable to cross to Terabithia on foot, it is made clear that the swing on the rope is a necessary element of the make-believe: “It would have been easier [to walk through the gully], but he couldn’t escape the feeling that one must enter Terabithia only by the prescribed entrance” (60).

The magical kingdom, just as with the kingdom of Narnia it is associated with in the book, requires an unusual means of entry in order to provide its makers with the necessary sense of awe and otherworldliness. Terabithia itself becomes exactly what the children felt they needed, a place of their own that can be messed up by no one because of its very secretive nature. Leslie tells Jess it would be “a whole secret country … and you and I would be the rulers of it” to which Jesse’s thoughts are revealed: “Her words stirred inside of him.

He’d like to be a ruler of something. Even something that wasn’t real” (39). As the two children explore the deeper places of Terabithia, such as the pine forest, Jess begins to learn how to face his greater fears. Although he has always been afraid of the pine forest, Leslie shows him why it is not something to fear while still validating his suspicions that it is somehow haunted. “At first he heard only the stillness. It was the stillness that had always frightened him before, but this time it was like the moment after Miss Edmunds finished a song, just after the church hummed down to silence” (46-47).

This sacred land is the place where Jess and Leslie go to escape the greater world on the outside, where parents uprooted your life to live in the country or were constantly angry with you and unfair in assigning household chores, but is also a place where magic happens, where Leslie can tell Jess the most amazing stories and Jess can see himself as something more than simply the only boy in the family, expected to do and be interested in only boy things. Midway through the book, when Leslie is finally getting the chance to know her father, Jess finds that the magic of Terabithia is only able to come alive because of the magic inside Leslie: “Jess tried going to Terabithia alone, but it was no good.

It needed Leslie to make the magic. He was afraid he would destroy everything by trying to force the magic on his own when it was plain that the magic was reluctant to come for him” (65). However, by the end of the book, he is introducing this magic to his younger sister. “Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong, you had to move on … It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength” (126).

With this realization, Jesse has passed into a world where the magic is his own and, like Leslie, he finds comfort in the idea of passing it along to a less enlightened mind. The bridge that Jesse builds over the creek bed at the end of the story replaces the rope swing that broke and caused Leslie’s death. Like the rope, the bridge itself is not exactly needed most of the year, built as it is when the creek is already subsiding. While it is true that the bridge does not provide the same sense of exhilaration and danger that was brought about while floating across on the rope swing, a bridge is equally symbolic of crossing a gulf of some sort.

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