Bridge to Terabithia

Book: Bridge to Terabithia
By: Katherine Paterson 


Bridge to Terabithia  is a book that is commonly assigned in the classroom for elementary student that is a coming of age story of two elementary students who are outcasts and together find a way to get past stereotypes of how they should be to others, building a friendship that ends in tragedy and also a sense of renewal.

Plotline/Summary: Jesse Aarons is determined to become the fastest runner in the fifth grade, but his goal is crushed when he is second to his new neighbor──and new girl to his school──Leslie, who dares to play with the boys during recess. Despite trying to avoid Leslie because of her lack of owning a television and odd personality, Aaron quickly realizes that Leslie is an amazing friend and together they build an imaginary kingdom called Terabithia where Jesse and Leslie are king and queen who fight off imaginary invaders. The ending is tragic, but is the breaking point when Jesse realizes it's okay to not be fearless, offers Jesse a rebirth for Terabithia and the life changing impact that Leslie had in his life.

Review: I adored Bridge to Terabithia because it addresses gender biases among children and "otherness" in how Leslie has a unisex name and prefers to interact with boys instead of fitting her gender role and playing with other girls her age. The language is very simple, but beautifully written and Leslie's character is modern in terms of religion and how her parents raise her. Bridge to Terabithia is one of my favorite childhood books and I honestly still can never read it without crying, but I love the ending in how Jesse's character realizes the importance of Leslie's friendship.

Author's Writing Technique: Katherine Paterson based the character of Jesse from her son, and used the death of his best friend to base the character of Leslie. It enabled to build her characters around real life personalities and an actual event which predetermined the ending, so she only had to build up to the moment and expand on her character's personalities.

Writer's Tip: Try writing a character based on yourself or someone you know. Try to keep the character loosely based to allow creative expansion on the character's personality. It helps to make a general personality type, but also to mold the character as the story progresses to have more originality.