Bridge to TerabithiaContext Katherine Paterson was born in China in 1932, the daughter of Christian missionaries. However, her parents were very liberal Christians, dedicated to educating others about the faith rather than forcing others to believe. This philosophy was doubtless imprinted on Katherine as well, and it is demonstrated in her treatment of faith in Bridge to Terabithia. The Paterson family left China during World War II, when the Japanese invaded Manchuria, and returned to the U.S. The Paterson family didn't stay in one place for very long throughout this World War II period; instead, they moved to various towns in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, finally settling in Winchester, Virginia—a rural area quite similar to the setting of Bridge to Terabithia. It was in Virginia that Paterson learned English. Although she had always been a voracious reader, this transition to a new language was difficult for her, but the benefits were great. Soon after that, Paterson began to attend King College in Bristol, Tennessee, studying literature. By now, Paterson had developed a dream of becoming a missionary, and it was this desire to educate and enlighten, perhaps, that led her to spend a year teaching sixth grade in Lovettsville, Virginia, where she says "almost all the students were like Jesse Aarons." After this year teaching, she undertook graduate studies in Richmond, studying the Bible and Christian education. After she had completed graduate school, she moved to Japan. She had always wanted to go back to China, but it had never been feasible, and a friend suggested that she might want to learn about Japanese culture. At first she was nervous about this, seeing the Japanese only as the enemy during World War II, but eventually she set aside her misgivings and went. She came to love it there, and it figures heavily in her early books. She would have stayed there except that she met and fell in love with the Reverend John Paterson, a Presbyterian minister. They were married in 1962, and together they moved to New York. Over the years, they had four children, two adopted and two biological. It was in these years as well that Paterson became seriously dedicated to becoming a writer. However, she met with very little success at first, writing prolifically and getting hardly anything published. Finally, a friend, taking pity on her efforts, invited Paterson to join her in a creative writing class she was taking. The novel she wrote in the class, The Sign of the Chrysanthemum, a Japanese fairy tale, was published in 1974. In 1977, a tragedy occurred which is the basis for the novel Bridge to Terabithia. Her son David, then eight years old, had become inseparable friends with a little girl named Lisa Hill. Paterson had wondered about the implications of this cross-gender friendship, and felt a little uneasy about the unusual bond between them. Then Lisa was struck by lightning on the beach and was killed. David was understandably devastated, and Paterson grieved as well, understanding now how unimportant her fears had been. As a way of helping them both work through their grief, she wrote Bridge to Terabithia, which won the Newbery Award in 1978. Bridge to Terabithia is actually part of an ongoing censorship battle in many areas around the country. Critics cite the use of profanity in the book, but in fact the profanity is mild and infrequent: in dialogue some of the characters might use the words "damn" and "hell," but it is certainly not particularly pervasive. Clearly, the critics are angered for other reasons that they are more reluctant to aim, and general surmise attributes their complaints to the treatment of religion in the book. Leslie's family is liberal politically and do not attend church, whereas Jess's family only attends church at Easter. Religion is certainly not portrayed in a negative light in the book, but true to Paterson's upbringing, faith is shown to be fulfilling when divested of the strict, unforgiving dogma of the organized church. The ending, which reaffirms that God does not send good people to hell, essentially, is probably the reason that right-wing conservatives have come down on the book so strongly. Katherine Paterson has always advocated the need for contemporary, realistic children's fiction, eschewing fluff and mindless entertainment. All of her books challenge the conventional boundaries of acceptable themes for children's literature, taking on such topics as the death of a loved one (Bridge To Terabithia, Flip-Flop Girl), the tribulations of foster children (The Great Gilly Hopkins, which was written out of her own brief, unsatisfactory experience as a foster mother), governmental persecution (Rebels Of The Heavenly Kingdom), and the historical exploitation of young workers (Lyddie). Plot Overview Jess Aarons is an eleven-year-old boy living in a rural area of the South who loves to run. He dreams of being the fastest boy in the fifth grade when school starts up in the fall, feeling that this will for once give him a chance to stand in the spotlight among his five sisters, and might win him the attention of his preoccupied father. Jess is quite insecure in his identity. He loves to paint and draw, but he knows very well that this labels him a "sissy" in the eyes of most of the world, particularly his father. In addition, his family is stretched so tight by poverty that he has little chance to really explore his own identity during this crucial period of adolescence. He has therefore built up the importance of winning in his mind, feeling that here, at least, is something that he is good at which won't win him an undesired label of "sissy" or "girl" in the eyes of his father or schoolmates, and which will allow him to shine in his own right. He practices each morning, always dreaming of his upcoming victory. However, when the races come around at recess, a new girl, Leslie Burke, who just moved next door to Jess, boldly crosses to the boys' side of the playground and beats everyone. A rather unpromising beginning, but Jess and Leslie become fast friends. They build a secret fantasyland across the creek in the woods, called Terabithia, where they play all the time. There they forget the rest of the world, such as the kids at school or Jess's less-than-satisfactory family. The time they spend in Terabithia, in fact, seems to strengthen them for these trials of everyday life: it is there that they map out a plan of revenge on the school bully when she steals May Belle's Twinkies, and it is there that they discuss Jess's feelings of insecurity when Leslie begins to draw closer to her father. Leslie also introduces Jess to the world of imagination and creativity, telling him the stories of such classics of literature as Moby Dick and Hamlet . All this also strengthens Jess's artistic talent and ability, as Leslie supports his ambition and, through the stories she tells, provides him with great subject matter. But much of the time they play wonderful games of their own invention—defeating intruders on Terabithian territory, praying to the Spirits of the Grove to end a long spell of rain, and numerous other fantasies. However, Jess and Leslie's friendship, though centered in Terabithia, is not limited to Terabithia. They see each other at school, where they take a good deal of ribbing for their cross-gender friendship, but by now that sort of teasing has lost the power to hurt Jess, and Leslie has never been particularly bothered by what others think. At home, they celebrate holidays together, such as Christmas, when Jess gives Leslie a puppy and she gives him an expensive art set to develop his artistic talent, and Easter, when Leslie goes to church for the first time with Jess. Leslie is impressed by the beauty of the story of Christ. Jess and his little sister May Belle, cowed by negative and unforgiving religious training, are convinced that nonbelievers such as Leslie are doomed to hell, and find the whole experience disturbing. Nevertheless, Jess and Leslie remain the best of friends, and Jess finds a purpose in his life through Leslie's company that he's never had before. One day the music teacher at school, Miss Edmunds, whom Jess has long had a crush on, invites him to spend a day with her touring the art galleries in Washington. This trip does much to expand his mind and make him feel as if he is special, a feeling he has previously only had in Leslie's company. Jess has a perfect day, but when he gets home he is told that Leslie drowned in the creek that morning trying to swing into Terabithia on the rope that they used for that purpose. Jess is completely devastated and goes through the stages of grief—denial, anger, fear, and sorrow—all incredibly painful to suffer and, indeed, to read about. Initially, he does not see how he is to go on initially. Leslie has raised him to new heights as the king of Terabithia, and now he feels that without her, he has no choice but to revert to the old Jess, plagued by fear and insecurity. However, eventually he realizes that he can only keep Leslie's memory, and his own newfound sense of self, alive by continuing the fantasy of Terabithia. He brings his little sister May Belle there and makes her its new queen, assuring that a part of Leslie will live on as well. Character List Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. - The main character and protagonist of the novel. Jess is a fifthgrader living in a rural Southern area. He is lonely and lost in the middle of a family of four girls when Leslie Burke moves in next door. Leslie and Jess become best friends, and the novel centers on their friendship. Jess is a budding artist whose talent receives little praise from anyone except Leslie and Miss Edmunds. Yet he is quite talented, as well as intelligent, caring, and down- to-earth. A thoroughly likable character, we are quickly drawn into his world and his personal tribulations. Leslie Burke - Jess's new next-door neighbor and best friend. Highly intelligent and imaginative, it is her idea to build a fantasyland named Terabithia across the creek. Leslie's family is affluent and well educated, in stark contrast with the rest of the residents in the area, and has an entirely different slant on life than any of the neighbors. All this influences Leslie as well and helps to develop her uniqueness and distinct flair. Read an in-depth analysis of Leslie Burke. Mrs. Aarons - Jess's mother. Mrs. Aarons is tired and careworn with the stresses of trying to support a family of seven on a poor family's income. She always seems to be hounding Jess to do chores or milk the cow, but her shortness of temper is merely a result of overwork. After Leslie's death, she shows herself to be a caring mother torn apart by her son's pain. Nevertheless, under normal circumstances she does not help to make Jess's home life inviting or comfortable. Mr. Aarons - Jess's father. Mr. Aarons is likewise harried by the concerns of being the sole breadwinner for a large family. He rarely has time for Jess, which is hard on the boy. He wants to do the right thing by his son, but he isn't quite sure how; the irony is that all he would really need to do would be to sit down with Jess, ruffle his hair, and talk with him about his day, but he doesn't seem to understand this. He expects Jess to be a "man," a source of considerable heartache and soul-searching on the part of Jess, whose passions lie elsewhere than playing football and driving big trucks. However, he is concerned with his son's welfare and wants nothing but the best for him, as is evidenced in his treatment of Jess after Leslie's death. Ellie - Jess's oldest sister. Her age is never given directly, but we can guess that she's about fifteen or sixteen. Ellie is thoroughly spoiled, much like Brenda, the difference between them is that Ellie has mastered the art of sycophancy, and consequently leaves a much better taste in most people's mouths. Vain, conceited, and shallow, Ellie continually annoys Jess. Brenda - Jess's second-oldest sister. We can surmise that she is around fourteen. Brenda is even more annoying than Ellie. She shares Ellie's vanity and shallowness, but she whines continually and has no sense of when to stop before pushing people too far. She harries Jess continually, and is primly content with her own little world of makeup, scanty clothing, and romantic interests. Even after Leslie's death, Brenda will not stop harassing Jess. She is wholly immature and self-absorbed. May Belle Aarons - Jess's little sister. May Belle is closer to him than any other member of their family. She is six and a bit lost, and she is without close friends or siblings close enough in age to play with. She often tries to push herself in with Jess and Leslie, which they do not like, but all the same Jess feels bad for her. At the end of the novel, it is she who allows Terabithia to live on, as she becomes its new queen. Joyce Ann - Jess's youngest sister, at four years old. Joyce Ann is not developed very much as a character. She is often portrayed as whiny, but she is only four. Jess does not share the same bond with her that he does with May Belle, but he seems to feel a certain warmth toward her, as is evidenced by the end of the book, when he suggests that in time, Joyce Ann may join May Belle in Terabithia as a princess. Miss Edmunds - The music teacher at the school. Jess is deeply in puppy love with her. She seems a creature from another world to him, a beautiful woman with a beautiful look and a smile for all the students, but especially Jess. She encourages his artistic talent, one of the two people in the world, including Leslie, who does, and seems to care about him in a special way. She is somewhat of a hippie, which only deepens her allure for Jess, because it confirms her individuality and separation from the narrow world of Lark Creek. Kind and caring, it is no mystery why Jess adores her, as she seems to fill a void of affection and compassion that he does not get from his family. Read an in-depth analysis of Miss Edmunds. Mr. Burke - Leslie's father. He is a political writer who is extremely gifted intellectually but rather scatterbrained. Leslie's growing friendship with Bill disturbs Jess until Leslie invites him to spend time with them as well. Mrs. Burke - Leslie's mother. Judy writes novels and seems to spend most of her time closed in her room with her typewriter going. Not that she neglects Leslie, but she just seems busier than Mr. Burke. All in all, Leslie's parents lavish on her the love and attention that is not demonstrated clearly in Jess's house. Janice Avery - A seventh-grader who is the school bully. Janice terrorizes May Belle, as well as the rest of the younger kids, until Jess and Leslie find a way of getting back at her. However, Janice is not an ultimate demon; she has her own problems that lend her an aspect of sympathy. Her father abuses her, and when her friends blab her secrets to the entire school, her tough-girl persona snaps. It is Leslie who comforts her, at Jess's urging, forming an unlikely friendship between them. Analysis of Major Characters Jess Aarons Jess is the principal character of Bridge to Terabithia. The story is told through his eyes, though not in his voice, and thus we are given a deeper glimpse at his soul and motivations than those of anyone else in the book. Jess sees himself as a very ordinary boy, at least until Leslie comes along. He is unable to identify those characteristics that distinguish him from the rest because he is constantly in conflict with the various facets of his life. He has several distinct roles that those around him expect him to play. His family expects him to be the dutiful son and brother, and his own personality often seems to be less important to them than his ability to get the chores done. His father, in particular, expects him to be a "young man," to look at the world from an adult and distinctly masculine perspective. Jess's personal passions and skills, such as art, are to be discouraged if they do not help him fit into this role. The students at school likewise expect him to conform, to throw himself wholeheartedly into pursuits such as sports. Amid all this, the only thing Jess can grasp that fulfills his expected responsibilities from all these people and which fulfills him personally is running, and he seizes on this fanatically, determined to distinguish himself as the fastest runner in the fifth grade. This, he feels, will free him from what he feels to be his curse of ordinariness, and will make him into a person that both he and everyone else can accept. However, when Leslie comes along, we are allowed to see the true Jess shining through the poorly constructed mask of conformity. His artistic talent is the main tangible thing that distinguishes him from the rest, and Leslie nurtures this through encouragement and a gift of an expensive paint set. However, the importance of this talent pales beside the personal qualities Jess is finally allowing himself to acknowledge. He has the sensitivity and kindness that would probably be at odds with the "tough guy" image everyone seems to want him to project. He coddles his younger sister and even convinces Leslie to help the school bully, who has caused him and everyone else in the school untold annoyance and fear, when he finds out that she's crying in the bathroom. He is possessed of a sharp intelligence which he is able to put to use for the first time when confronted with the intellectual stimulation that Leslie provides, through her books and her imagination. Through his friendship with Leslie, Jess truly manages to find himself. But he is not simply dependent on her for this newfound sense of self; when she dies, he eventually finds that he can carry on and continue in the path of personal growth she has helped him to find. Jess is a thoroughly admirable boy on his way to becoming a man, and the story of his growth is the kernel of Bridge to Terabithia. Leslie Burke Leslie moves to Lark Creek at the beginning of her and Jess's fifth-grade year, and she stands out in shining contrast to the rest of the students. Her parents are highly educated, intellectual, affluent, and liberal, and they have exposed her to the wider world in a way that none of the students at Lark Creek have ever imagined. Leslie is full to the brim with imagination, creativity, mischief, and fun. A voracious reader with a keen sense of intellectual curiosity, she is the one who comes up with the idea of Terabithia. She immediately senses the potential in Jess and the two become fast friends, and it is she who draws Jess out of the socially constructed shell that has constrained him for his whole life. Leslie is also kind personally and emotionally. Unlike Jess, whose parents give the appearance of being too busy and careworn to devote much excess energy to raising their children, Leslie's parents—though not always, perhaps, the absolute most attentive parents in the world at all times—have nevertheless always had time for her when she's really needed them, and have given their best to bringing her up to make them proud. Under this wholesome influence Leslie has become an extraordinary child. Most of the students at Lark Creek, with their unerring instinct for absolute conformity, do not care much for her because she is so different, but she proves to be the perfect friend for Jess. Leslie often gives the impression of being absolutely fearless, which Jess at once admires and finds intimidating. Jess has become convinced throughout his life that a truly admirable person is never scared of anything, and Leslie's apparently dauntless nature rubs on a sore spot in Jess's soul, for he wishes he could be the same way. However, as we see at the end of the novel, Leslie's fearlessness ultimately is her tragic downfall. Jess had berated himself many times for being afraid to swing across the creek when it was high, but then the rope breaks while Leslie is swinging and she falls to her death. Thus one of her most admirable characteristics is proven to be less than perfect. Miss Edmunds Miss Edmunds is the only person, before Leslie, who ever encouraged Jess to explore his true nature and to escape the mindless conformity of Lark Creek Elementary, by nourishing his artistic talent and assuring him that he has a "neat kid." Like Leslie, Miss Edmunds is sorely out of place in Lark Creek. She bears a passing resemblance to Leslie's parents, in her liberal worldview and "hippie" characteristics. For this reason, she is almost universally distrusted at the school. But even so, there is an undeniable appeal about this slim, attractive young music teacher that even the most hardened students cannot deny. Her status as a music teacher is appropriate, purveyor of the aesthetic arts rather than staid grammar and arithmetic. The rest of the school seems dedicated exclusively to the health of the mind and Miss Edmunds provides some much-needed food for the soul. Jess is deeply infatuated with Miss Edmunds. His crush on her is proof that he longs for something more than the narrow world of Lark Creek, that he senses that there is a beauty and vibrancy to the world that he is never been privy to in his world of grinding poverty and severely limited outlook. There is a freshness about her that is like a breath of fragrant air in the stale atmosphere of this rural community. Most of the students distrust this, but Jess is greatly impressed by it. Miss Edmunds is a symbol of the beauty and freedom that are possible in the world, and Jess is entranced by the idea and the emotions she stirs in him. Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes Friendship Jess and Leslie's friendship is the central theme of Bridge to Terabithia. Their friendship is delightful on a simple level, their childish exploits fraught with amusement and joy. However, we cannot simply call Bridge to Terabithia a monument to the carefree pleasures of childhood, because that would miss one of the main points of the story. The reason that Jess and Leslie's friendship is so magical is because it allows them to rejoice in childhood and to escape the rest of the pressures that bear down on them so heavily in the rest of their lives. Jess, in particular, leads a life full of everyday hardship and dissatisfaction. We sense that before Leslie came along, he was in danger of sinking under the weight of these combined pressures and reluctantly accepting conformity. This is the essential beauty of their friendship: it allows both Leslie and Jess, particularly Jess, to find their true selves. This seems to be Paterson's central point about friendship—that it allows friends to expand, to explore new dimensions of one's character as a result of the other person's pushing one in new directions. For example, Jess's artistic abilities are strengthened by Leslie's imagination, which provides perfect fodder for new and innovative artwork, and Leslie's strength and courage are tested and developed when Jess encourages her to help Janice Avery. Jess discovers in himself an aptitude for invention and creativity; Leslie uncovers a desire for spirituality when Jess brings her to church. Rather counterintuitively, Paterson suggests that individuality is difficult to find on one's own, because then one has no aid in combating societal and other external pressures and forces which would attempt to destroy one's individuality. Rather, in a friendship, one discovers new aspects of oneself and helps the other person to discover new aspects of him/herself as well. This is particularly important in an adolescent friendship such as the one described in Bridge to Terabithia, because those are the formative years, when much of one's adult character is determined. A friendship such as Jess and Leslie share allows the two to become comfortable with themselves, to discover who they really are without worries that what they find will not fit into the "proper" mold. Ultimately, each member of such a friendship is strengthened and developed by the friendship. Childhood Childhood is a corollary to the theme of friendship in the book. As mentioned before, some people might have a tendency to breezily summarize childhood as a time of carefree bliss, when nothing could go wrong. This might be reinforced by the idealized times that Leslie and Jess spend in Terabithia, which seem to be the epitome of untroubled childhood joy. However, Paterson recognizes that this is far from being true all the time—in fact, the main attraction of Terabithia is that it allows the children to escape the "real world," which is apparently nearly as full of pain and sorrow for children as for adults. Sometimes this is played down a bit, as when May Belle is devastated when Janice Avery steals her Twinkies; however, the character of Janice herself is perfect proof that childhood is not always perfect, given her father's violent abuse of her. Jess, too, struggles with very pervasive problems of identity imposed by his family and classmates. Leslie must contend with the disdain of her classmates and the wavering attention of her parents, whose work often dominates their lives. Paterson clearly encourages us to take a look beyond the stereotype of idealized childhood and to realize that children deal with problems just as pressing as those that adults face. Our priorities shift as we grow older, so we have a tendency to downplay the crises of childhood as unimportant, even though they are very real and important to the children who suffer them. Conformity and individuality Jess's main struggle in the book is to discover his true identity when faced with the demands of his family and society in general. The push is for him to conform—to discard his artistic talent and concentrate instead on those pursuits that are either more "manly" or which will be more practically useful to the family. His classmates expect him to come out of a certain mold as well, to watch the Washington Redskins on television and hang with the guys and act tough. However, it's Jess misfortune—or, to offer an alternate point of view, his good luck—not to fit this mold particularly well, and he feels trapped, finding running to be the only safe outlet for his own talents and inclinations. When Leslie comes along, she helps Jess to escape from the crushing pressures of conformity. Her parents' background as free-spirited near- hippies has given her a great deal of freedom and personal choice, and she opens Jess's eyes to the possibilities that exist for him as well. When she dies, he is crushed, but he has gained enough strength and sense of self through his friendship with her to carry on without her and not lose touch with all she has taught him. Gender Roles Gender role is a motif that plays off the idea of conformity. Jess is expected to fit into a certain mold, but that mold is a distinctly masculine one. Jess's father is scornful of his artistic ability, calling it a girl's pastime. Jess's classmates snigger if he shows a tendency to want to avoid brawling when possible. Jess is expected to be responsible, stoic, and strong, and to be ready to shoulder the burden of responsibility for the family that his father has carried all these years. Leslie meets with the family's disapproval because she doesn't fit easily into a feminine category, with her short hair and athletic ability. However, this is part of what draws Jess to her. She has a liberating force that she exerts over all his cramped confinement. Leslie shows him that he does not need to fulfill a peculiarly masculine role, and that he is free to be himself without reference to gender stereotypes. Education Education is portrayed rather dubiously throughout Bridge to Terabithia. Certainly the area in which Jess lives is not strong on education: the rural area is dirt-poor, with little money to fund a school system, and most of the residents are uneducated as well, farmers by destiny and by trade. Jess has very little exposure to intellectual thirst and curiosity until he meets the Burkes. They are all extremely intelligent and highly educated, a fact that sets Jess reeling at first. Certainly their education forms a crucial difference between them and the rest of the people in the area. Yet the dichotomy is not absolute. As Jess gets to know Leslie, he hungrily devours her books and eagerly immerses himself in the imaginary world of Terabithia. He doesn't assimilate her education overnight, but the seeds of intelligence and desire to learn are firmly planted in him, and if he'll never be the erudite that either of Leslie's parents is, the gap between them is not as wide as he imagines. The reader is left wishing that Jess had the opportunity to have the education that Leslie's had, but in the end it isn't really necessary: his cleverness and ambition will take him far in their own right. Terabithia Terabithia is a symbol of idealized childhood, of a perfect world in which children can rule supreme without the heavy responsibilities of adulthood. No bad thing can touch the rulers of Terabithia—no matter what the obstacle, they will always emerge victorious. The place provides a much-needed refuge for Leslie and Jess. However, Terabithia is not an absolute sanctuary, as is proven upon Leslie's death. She drowns in the creek, the border between the perfect world of Terabithia and the harder world of reality. The novel suggests that Leslie is frozen forever on the boundary between childhood and adulthood, symbolized by the creek itself. By the end of the novel, Jess comes to understand that the enchantment of Terabithia is meant to last for a season only, and—not that he must move on, necessarily—but that he must not depend on Terabithia as an escape anymore, but instead start tackling life's problems headon. By the end of the novel, Jess is a man, though not exactly in the sense that his father has hoped for all these years. Rather, he has managed to strike a balance between retaining the best parts of childhood and attaining a new maturity. The rope over the creek and the bridge to Terabithia When they originated the idea of Terabithia, Leslie decreed that the rope swinging over the creek would be a magic rope, the only entrance to the magical land. Jess accepted this decree wholeheartedly, and always felt that Terabithia was not really Terabithia unless one entered by the prescribed method. When the rope snaps, it seems to be a symbol stating that the magic is at an end. The breaking of the rope seems to cement the fate of Terabithia, which really died with the death of its queen. However, Jess eventually comes to realize that the magic is in him as much as it was in Leslie, and he has the power to resurrect Terabithia. It will be different, completely different, but its soul will remain the same. Jess himself has broken some ties with Terabithia in his newfound maturity. However, May Belle is still a child, and deserves the enchanted childhood only available to her in Terabithia. In building the bridge to Terabithia, Jess affirms that the beauty, wonder, and magic that were so much a part of Leslie did not disappear when she died. Instead, he perpetuates that magic, and in a form more solid and lasting than the rope. Jess's days of absolute, carefree, childish happiness in Terabithia are over, but he passes Leslie's legacy on by building the bridge to Terabithia. Chapter 1: Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. Summary Jess Aarons, an eleven-year-old boy living on a country farm with his parents and four sisters, has nurtured one dream all summer long. When school opens, he longs to be the fastest runner in the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Each day at recess races are organized among those three grades, and now that Jess is in fifth grade and at the top of the ladder, he is confident that he can outrun them all. Bridge to Terabithia opens with his morning training run in the cow pasture. As he runs, he thinks excitedly of the race coming up, and basks in the idea of winning and distinguishing himself in front of everyone. He pictures the amazement of his schoolmates and the admiration of his family. However, he is called sharply back to reality when his mother calls him in to breakfast, complaining that he has run too long and will have to milk the cow when he has finished breakfast. Coming into the house, he is heckled by his mother and whined at by his older sisters, Ellie (the oldest) and Brenda (the second oldest), who make nuisances of themselves in general by pestering their mother for money for school and bickering over the chores. We also meet May Belle, Jesse's six-year-old sister, who admires Jess a great deal and gets along better with him than do the others, and Joyce Ann, his four-year-old sister who is young enough to be simply a pain in the neck. Brenda and Ellie coax money out of their mother for back-to-school shopping, which leaves Jess to do all the chores, "as usual," he thinks grumpily. At the end of the chapter, May Belle brings Jess the news that a new family is moving into the "old Perkins place", which is the farm next door to theirs. Jess shrugs off the news and carries on with the chores. Analysis In the opening chapter of Bridge to Terabithia, several important themes are introduced breezily, themes which will be developed more fully throughout the course of the novel. One of the most telling scenes in the chapter comes when Jess imagines the reaction of his family and friends when he wins the races at school. Much of this is easily understandable, and almost generic: his sister bragging about him, and his competitors' stunned faces. But there is a particularly important detail is given when Jess imagines his father's pride in him. Jess imagines a perfect domestic scene in which his father forgets all about how tired he is from working all day and wrestles and plays with Jess, which is a wistfully imagined scene of fatherson companionship and bonding. He finishes by saying "Old Dad would be surprised at how strong he'd gotten the last couple of years," clearly demonstrating that Jess has not shared such a scene with his father in quite awhile. As the novel progresses, we learn that Jess' father is often too preoccupied and tired to pay much attention to Jess, and when he does, he looks on him as a man to be relied upon and who ought to have put his childhood aside, not as a boy who needs close companionship and nurturing. All this is encapsulated in Jess's desire to win the race and show his father that he is at once a man capable of competing athletically and a boy deserving of praise. The scene at the breakfast table likewise demonstrates the Aarons family dynamic at a glance. Pleasant conversation and companionship is nonexistent. Brenda and Ellie bicker the whole time and Jess's mother only takes notice of him to hound him about the chores. Jess hardly seems to exist for his family and he is never been able to find a true niche where he can be happy, or been able to explore his own identity. Everyone in the family is too wrapped up in his or her own problems and concerns. Jess is shown to be somewhat adrift, searching for his own identity as he approaches puberty, but unable to find himself amid the concerns and annoyances thrust upon him by his family. This is Jess's situation before meeting Leslie; ironically, he pays little attention to the arrival of her family in the house next door, but her advent will provide the solution to many of Jess's problems. Chapter 2: Leslie Burke Summary Jess finishes the chores with his mother. Today she has been canning beans, and the resultant heat from all the boiling has put her in a terrible mood and worn Jess out. He makes dinner for his little sisters, and then stretches out to draw for a little while. Jess, we find, has both a talent and a passion for art, a talent which nobody appreciates except for the music teacher at school, Miss Edmunds. Jess is deeply in puppy love with Miss Edmunds. She is like a breath of fresh air to him in the squalid atmosphere of his school, Lark Creek Elementary, which is very much like an extension of his home environment. At school, the teachers are prone to nagging and the students are generally catty and demonstrate little intellectual curiosity or desire to learn. Compared with the rest, Miss Edmunds is extraordinarily sweet, kind, and beautiful. Most of the kids pretend not to like her, citing her hippie-like aura, but Jess adores her and knows that, deep down, so do the others. Music class is the only time at school when the students are allowed to let their hair down and relax and have fun. Jess shares a special relationship with Miss Edmunds. She gives him the positive feedback and attention that he cannot find anywhere else. She is the only person he has shown his art to since he attempted to show it to his father years ago, when his father became angry and more or less accused Jess of being a sissy. Miss Edmunds, however, assures Jess that his work shows real promise and offers to help him in any way she can. She senses that he is an unusual child who is out of place in the world of Lark Creek Elementary—"the proverbial diamond in the rough," she calls him. Although Jess feels that description is more suited to Miss Edmunds herself than to him, he basks in the feeling of being cared for and appreciated. Again, Jess is called out of his reverie by a call from his mother, a reminder to get on with the milking. As he milks, the rest of the family trickles in, Ellie and Brenda from shopping, and his father from work. Jess watches, envious, as May Belle runs to her father and is picked up and hugged and kissed. As Jess puts it, "it seemed he had been thought too old for that kind of thing since the day he was born." Throughout the night, the only thing his father says to him directly is "Mighty late with the milking, aren't you, son?" The next morning, Jess goes out for his morning run, as usual. He is interrupted by a comment from a person sitting on their fence—"If you're so scared of the cow, why don't you just jump the fence?" At first, Jess cannot tell if the person speaking to him is a boy or a girl. He or she introduces him/herself as Leslie Burke, one of the new neighbors. Eventually, Jess comes to the correct conclusion that Leslie is a girl. He is more or less indifferent to her, and he shrugs her off, and goes back to the house to finish the chores. Analysis The introduction of Miss Edmunds gives us our first glimpse of the world beyond this rural, somewhat backward society in which Jess lives. Miss Edmunds's leanings toward the hippie way of life, demonstrated by the songs she teaches the children, like "Blowing in the Wind" and "Free To Be You and Me." She is refreshingly different from the tenor of local society, which is generally poor, uneducated, and imbued with a roughness and brusqueness generated by unfavorable circumstances. Miss Edmunds brings the world beyond into this economically unfortunate area, carrying with her an indefinable sense of broadened horizons and carefree happiness. Jess's description of her as a "diamond in the rough" is quite apt; this is the role she continues to play throughout the whole of the novel. Leslie's androgynous appearance is given some attention here, and it foreshadows an important theme that is to be developed more fully throughout the course of the novel. In the eyes of the world, Jess's friendship with Leslie is novel because cross-gender friendships are rare at that age. Jess's peers and siblings see Leslie as a girl, complete with all that the name implies. However, Leslie is not a "girl" in that sense in Jess's eyes. Rather, she transcends such standard definitions and perceptions of gender. At first, Jess cannot figure out if she is a boy or a girl, and it is quite fitting that he should be confused about this initially, because Leslie simply does not conform to society's prescription of femininity. It also foreshadows the way that Jess and Leslie can be platonic friends without the slightest hint of romantic or budding sexual tension. Jess just doesn't see her in that light. This also points up the essential uselessness of such gender demands. Jess faces these demands every day, starting with his father's expectation that he will possess certain "masculine" qualities and eschew other "feminine" attributes. Jess is constrained in his search for individuality because he does not fit into some ready-made masculine model. His artwork is a good example of his confusion. Despite the clear talent that he demonstrates, his father is scornful because drawing is not a "boy's" pastime. Also, Jess's father's lack of demonstrated affection towards Jess is likewise a good indicator of his view that Jess is a young man and that men aren't given to such displays of emotion and affection. This is probably why Jess is so anxious to win the races at school, because running happens to be a skill of his that is coincidentally identified with masculine qualities. In winning the races, he will prove to his father than he can be a man's man after all. Nevertheless, this expectation of manliness clouds Jess's ability to discern who he really is. Leslie, however, is wholly apart from this struggle. Her short hair and boyish strength liberate her from the need to be either feminine or masculine. She is allowed to discover who she really is without reference to arbitrary gender designations Chapter 3: The Fastest Kid in the Fifth Grade Summary It is the first day of school and back to the grind for Jess, whose only consolation is that the first race of the year will take place that afternoon. He comes to class to find that Leslie is in his class as well. Already she is a target for malicious taunting, since she has come in cutoffs and a T-shirt, apparently not realizing, or else not caring, that the rest of the students show up for the first day of school in their Sunday best. Jess lives through the morning in a fever of anticipation, waiting for the races at recess. After a morning's worth of endurance of typical teacher irritability and peer annoyances, recess begins and the races are about to start. Jess is watching quietly as Gary Fulcher bosses everyone around when Leslie comes up to stand beside him. Gary begins to get too high-handed, running the races autocratically and unfairly, so Jess stands up to him, demanding that two boys who tied in their heat both be allowed to run in the finals. Gary, angered, derisively suggests that perhaps Jess wants to let a girl run. Jess agrees and tells her she can run in his heat. When the race begins, Jess is supremely confident and proud of the speed he's gained over the summer. He imagines everyone is watching in awe, noticing how much he has improved, but all of a sudden he senses a figure drawing close to him, then ahead of him. As the figure pulls across the finish line, he can see that it is Leslie. Gary wants to kick Leslie out of the race now that she has had her chance and run in her heat, but she demands to run in the finals. Jess backs her up, despite his humiliation and disappointment, by challenging Gary and asking if he's scared to race her. Gary reluctantly agrees to let her race, and she wins the finals as well. After the race Leslie tries to befriend him, telling him he's the "only kid in this durned school worth shooting," but he brushes her off brusquely, telling her, "So shoot me." He continues to avoid her throughout the day, and when he sees her running toward her home after school, in her graceful, rhythmic run, he shrugs off the admiration which wells up within him and turns homeward. Analysis The theme of Leslie's androgyny, or rather, of her transcendence of gender limitations, is developed more fully here. She wins the race and demonstrates that she can outrun all the boys in the school. She has crossed over to the boys' side of the playground, which is taboo in Lark Creek Elementary. Symptomatic of the authorities' insistence on gender division, Gary warns her to get back over to the girls' side before a teacher catches her, but she ignores him and continues to break gender barriers. However, her running is not simply meant to portray her as a tomboy. Although running athletically is often thought of as a masculine pursuit, Paterson is careful to convey the grace and beauty of Leslie's run, giving it a more feminine quality. Leslie blends traits of both genders seamlessly, which lends her individuality previously unheard of in the world of Lark Creek Elementary. However, whether or not Leslie's speed is evidence of an aspect of masculinity or no, there is no question that Jess perceives her win to impugn his own masculinity. When Jess loses to her, he feels it to be a threat to his own tenuous sense of masculinity. This feeling worsens when he realizes he has lost a good chance to win his father's attention and affection. His instinctive dislike of Leslie is born of all these things. He has the sense that she is a dangerous interloper who will not fit in the standard mold, which is coupled with her defeat of him and the disintegration of his dreams. Nevertheless, Jess's moral fortitude is demonstrated clearly in his response to her win. Rather than allowing Leslie to be kicked out of the finals, an action which would likely result in his own admission to the finals, as the second- place winner in his heat, and make it possible to attain his dream of winning, he instead insists that she run in the finals as well. His sense of pride may be one reason that he does this, but there is also the simple element of fairness involved. This is an early sign of the qualities that distinguish Jess from most of his peers. He has an inherent and developed sense of justice, an ability to care about others, and an uncultivated but nevertheless sharp intelligence. Jess stands in contrast to his schoolmates, and Leslie certainly stands out, and thus the two of them seem to stand united against the rest. The portrayals of their classmates are perhaps a little one-dimensional. The boys all seem somewhat dim and the girls somewhat catty. Paterson apparently does not mean to distinguish the general run of Jess's schoolmates on an individual basis, which gives one the impression that there's precious little individuality to be found in that school. Chapter 4: Rulers of Terabithia Summary The first week of school passes, in which things seem unbearable for Jess. School is as boring and seemingly pointless as ever, but worse, Leslie continues to join the races at recess, and each day she wins. Enthusiasm for the races begins to die down as the boys' dissatisfaction and humiliation at being beaten by a girl grows. By the end of the week, it is understood that there will be no more races. Jess continues to avoid Leslie, unable to be around her without being reminded of his own shame and being irked by her inability to fit into the Lark Creek Elementary mold. The one bright spot on the horizon is Miss Edmunds's weekly visit to the school. She comes on Friday, finally, and with her is a lift in Jess's spirits. During class, they sing "Free To Be You and Me," and Jess is transported. In the middle of the song, he suddenly realizes how silly he has been in avoiding Leslie, sensing intuitively that they could be great friends, and smiles across the room at her. Leslie correctly interprets his smile and sits beside him on the bus that afternoon. In their conversation, Jess learns a lot about Leslie. She comes from an affluent town with a good school district, much different from Jess's area, and that so far, she hates her new home. He learns that her parents moved to "reassess their value structure," meaning that "they decided they were too hooked on money and success, so they bought that old farm and they're going to farm it and think about what's important." Most daunting of all, is that Jess learns that Leslie's family is rich. In the poverty of the world he lives in, Jess can hardly understand this last fact, and in the end he simply vows to ignore it. All these differences are perhaps summed up in their worst light in an incident that takes place at the school. One day in school, Miss Myers reads aloud an essay that Leslie wrote on scuba diving, an essay that hits Jess hard, for its vivid description of the underwater world tap into his own fears of the water. After the essay has been read, Miss Myers announces that there is to be a special on Jacques Cousteau on television that night, and asks the class to watch the special and write a one-page essay about it. Leslie reluctantly, but bravely, raises her hand and tells Miss Myers that she cannot do the assignment, because her family does not have a TV set. The class is shocked and disdainful, and makes fun of her at recess. Leslie avoids Jess as he tries to comfort her, and after school dashes to the back of the bus and sits in what Jess knows to be the seventh graders' private territory. Jess runs to the back of the bus and tries to retrieve Leslie, but Janice Avery, the ultimate school bully, catches them there. Jess forces himself to stand up to her, making a crack about her weight, and then Jess and Leslie shoulder past Janice and make their way to their usual seats. Jess's defiance of Janice seems to have cheered Leslie up somewhat, perhaps helping her to realize that there is someone in the school who likes her and is willing to fight for her, and she suggests that they do something together that afternoon. May Belle tries to push in, but Leslie gives her a set of brand-new paper dolls that her grandmother had sent her to placate her. Jess and Leslie have the afternoon to themselves. They spend the afternoon swinging on an old rope hanging from a tree near the creek. As they swing, Leslie suggests that they need a place just of their own, apart from the rest of the world and known only to them—a secret, magic land of which they would be the rulers. Jess is excited by the idea, so they cross the creek to the woods. They decide to build their "castle stronghold" just on the other side of the creek, which relieves Jess. Jess does not like the darker parts of the woods, where it was "almost like being underwater." Leslie names their secret land Terabithia. Jess and Leslie's friendship continues to grow and deepen in the next couple of months, both in school and in Terabithia. They face the harassment of Janice Avery and the teasing of their schoolmates and Jess's sisters, who assume and insist that Jess and Leslie are boyfriend and girlfriend rather than just friends. Leslie even helps school to go by faster for Jess, relating to him all sorts of mischievous imaginings about the teacher. The only problem in their friendship is that, when they're not in Terabithia, they are not really comfortable spending time at either family's house. Leslie's parents intimidate jess, because of their education, money, and less parental relationship with Leslie. Jess's parents disapprove of his consuming friendship with "that girl who dresses funny," Ellie and Brenda tease them constantly, and May Belle continually tries to horn in on their time together. Terabithia is the only place they can escape to, and Jess feels himself to be a new person the second he's swung across the creek on the old rope. Near the end of the chapter, Jess gathers the nerve to bring Leslie to the deep pine forest he is slightly afraid of, and Leslie manages to put his fears to rest by assuring him that it is haunted by the spirits of beautiful things, that it is a sacred place that even the rulers of Terabithia must not frequent on light matters. Jess listens to the silence for a moment, and suddenly it seems very different than it had before. Analysis The issue of money comes up in this chapter for the first time. Leslie is extremely different from any of the other children at Lark Creek Elementary, and this difference is summarized for the students both by her family's affluence and their tendency to spend that money differently than most families in the area would. Being rich sets Leslie apart, but when her schoolmates learn that, despite that richness, her family has chosen not to buy a television, it is painfully apparent that Leslie and her family are quite different from anyone else in Lark Creek. What the students cannot understand, they promptly condemn. In a way, Leslie's family's lack of a television does highlight some essential difference between them and the other residents of the new area they have moved into. Television has been nicknamed the "idiot box" for a reason, it is completely mindless entertainment, a way of zoning and escaping the real world to be immersed in an idealized version. Most of the students at Lark Creek need that sort of inane diversion, and their lives have never been given over to deep thought or betterment of their minds. Leslie's family's lack of a television reveals that they have had enough of mindless entertainment, and that they are trying to get in tune with what is really important. The students sense this and straightaway resent it. The conviction of all their schoolmates and of Jess's family that Leslie is Jess's "girlfriend" demonstrates at once how their friendship transcends the standard gender limitations imposed by their society, and how that society is simply unable to accept that any such thing might occur. Their playground is divided into a girls' side and a boys' side. Leslie flouted these gender conventions from the first when she crossed to the boys' side and won the races, showing that she was neither a boy nor a girl in the strict sense of roles that Lark Creek had imposed on the words. Leslie has always been apart from these prescriptions. Now, through friendship with Leslie, Jess has found a way to escape as well. He has never completely fit the mold, and up to now he has blamed himself for that. His passion for drawing and his inability to please his father show that he, more than most, suffers from this assumption that a boy must fit into a certain "masculine" stereotype. In his friendship with Leslie, he is discovering who he really is, without reference to gender stereotypes. Chapter 5: The Giant Killers Summary One day on the bus, May Belle makes the mistake of shrieking across the bus to a friend that her father gave her Twinkies in her lunch. Unsurprisingly, Janice Avery steals May Belle's Twinkies at lunchtime. May Belle immediately runs screaming to Jess, demanding that he beat her up. Jess is loath to do so, since Janice is a lot bigger than he, but May Belle insists that he is "just yeller" and that a good big brother would beat her up. Leslie intervenes and tells May Belle that she and Jess will find some other way of getting back at Janice, explaining that the principal will kick Jess out of the school if he's caught fighting a girl. Jess gratefully agrees. In Terabithia, they come up with a plan: they write a love letter to Janice from Willard Hughes, the boy every girl in the seventh grade has a crush on. The letter says that Willard is madly in love with Janice and wants to walk her home from school the next day. The next day in school Jess slips it into her desk. Sure enough, Janice falls for it, and misses the bus the next day, only to have to walk home alone when Willard obviously does not show up. Jess feels a little bit badly for her, but feels they could not have done anything else. The next morning, Janice is furious, and May Belle is thrilled to know that her brother did so much for her. Analysis Janice's status as school bully is odd, given that that it is generally understood to be a masculine role. In some ways, Janice and Leslie are alike, since both flagrantly defy gender stereotypes. The effect of this scene is also to flesh Janice out a bit, and give her a little bit more of an individual personality. This will become important later in the novel, when Jess and Leslie get to know her in a different light. Jess's willingness to risk his own safety to get revenge on Janice Avery demonstrates that he truly cares about May Belle. She is the only member of his family who is generally shown in a positive light. She is certainly not idealized, as she gets on Jess's nerves quite often, but she is still generally depicted as a "good kid." Jess's revenge on Janice Avery shows that he is capable of intense loyalty and caring, not just to Leslie, but also to his family. Writing that note to Janice Avery was an act which required a good deal of courage, knowing what Janice would do to them if she found out and it says a lot for Jess that he's willing to do it. Jess's treatment of Leslie proves that he is not "yeller," as May Belle says. The way things turn out is another demonstration that society's expectations of boys and the "masculine" way of dealing with problems is by no means always the best. May Belle admits, when she demands that Jess fight Janice, that "she'll beat him up," yet she feels this is the way Jess has to deal with it and she is incapable of imagining a less violent solution. Jess himself very nearly capitulates and agrees to fight her, even though he knows it will not do any good and that Janice will emerge triumphant. Once again, though, it is Leslie who saves the day and shows Jess that he does not always have to do what his classmates assume is the right thing for a boy to do. Their solution requires cunning, stealth, and intelligence, rather than just brute force, and is ultimately far more successful than a fistfight would have been. Chapter 6: The Coming of Prince Terrien Summary Christmas is coming up, and Jess cannot figure out what to get for Leslie. Money is tight in his household, he has allotted a dollar for a present for each member of his family, and he has no way of getting a hold of any other money. He agonizes over it, knowing that Leslie will not care even if he does not get her anything, but it is important to him to be able to give her something. Finally one day he is on the bus, brooding over the situation, when he sees a sign advertising free puppies being given away. His problem is solved. Leslie is delighted with the puppy. She names it Prince Terrien, making it a prince of Terabithia. However, its wild puppy behavior soon shows itself to be so flagrantly ill-suited to the name that she makes him the court jester instead, although she does not change his name. For Jess's present, she gives him an expensive art set, with twenty-four watercolors and a pad of heavy art paper. The next morning Jess exchanges gifts with his family. His parents have splurged on an electric race-car set for him, something his father had clearly chosen in an effort to make him happy with something special. However, it does not work properly, and his father is tense and Jess desperately wants to please him. Finally he goes out to do the milking, where he joins Leslie and Prince Terrien. His tension and unhappiness vanish, and "it felt like Christmas again." Analysis Jess's gift of Prince Terrien shows that money is not important to their friendship. He had wanted to buy her a TV, an expensive one that she could keep in her room, which she would probably enjoy and which also might go a long way to helping the kids in school to feel more friendly toward her. He clearly equates more expensive gifts with better gifts, and the fact that he does not have as much money as she makes him feel inadequate. Then he finds Prince Terrien, a far better gift than any television he could have bought her, and it becomes clear to him that money is not necessary to sustain his magical friendship with Leslie. The present that Leslie gives him is expensive, true, but it is special because of the thought that went into buying it and the care behind it. The scene with Jess's father and the racecar set illuminates the dynamic between the two of them. It is clear here that Jess's father does care about him and wants him to be happy and his attempt to bridge the gap between them with an expensive present is touching. However, he makes the same mistake that Jess almost makes in selecting a present for Leslie. He assumes that more expensive presents are better presents and will make the recipient happier. He thinks Jess will like the racecars, but it shows how little he really knows Jess, that he would select that particular present. A better present would have been art supplies, or a book, or new running shoes. By splurging on this present, we are shown that Jess's father really does care about him, but it also demonstrates that the ties between them are tenuous, based on automatic, uneasy familial love rather than a relationship grounded in true knowledge of one another and mutual understanding. Chapter 7: The Golden Room Summary Mr. Burke has begun to renovate their new home, and Leslie is spending lots of time helping him. She is thrilled by the chance to spend so much time with him and get to know him better; she tells Jess that she is learning to "understand" her father. Jess, on the other hand, is lonely, miserable, and jealous. He feels abandoned, and cannot understand the relationship between Leslie and her father, which is so different from his relationship with his own father. Each time she calls him "Bill" rather than "Dad" he tenses up, and he does not understand why anyone would ever want or need to "understand" one's parents. He sees children as being in one world, adults in another, and he resents what he perceives to be the dimming of his own friendship with Leslie as her friendship with her father grows. Things go on like this for quite awhile, until Leslie finally notices and confronts him about it. Then she clears the whole matter up by suggesting that he help her and her father renovate the house. That is all Jess needs to feel included once more, and he immediately takes her up on her offer. The Burke house, though, is strange to Jess. Leslie's parents insist that he call them "Bill" and "Judy," which is a strain for him. They are extremely well educated and intellectual. Both are writers, Mrs. Burke writes novels and Mr. Burke political commentary, and their intelligence shines through their every action. Yet Jess is full of practical knowledge that is truly useful to Mr. Burke in his renovation, so that Jess is able to enjoy his time at the Burkes' without feeling superfluous or like a nuisance. The chapter's title comes from their renovation of the living room, which they paint gold. The results are spectacular, and Jess has a moment of fear when Leslie says of it "It is worthy to be in a palace." He had thought she might let the secret of Terabithia slip, but it remains just for the two of them. For the first time, in this chapter, Paterson describes one of the games they play in Terabithia. She has described their play there in abstract terms before, but now she tells us of a scene they act out when they return to Terabithia for the first time in almost a month, after redoing the house. Enemies have besieged the kingdom in their absence, and they must fight them off. After their victory, they go to the pine grove to thank the Spirits. Leslie's language is dignified and queenly, Jess is considerably less so, but neither one of them seems to find anything lacking in his manner, or in the game itself. Several days later at school, Leslie comes out of the bathroom with a startling revelation. Janice Avery is sitting in one of the stalls, crying. Leslie initially seems to view this simply as an interesting occurrence, but Jess convinces her that they have to try to help her. Leslie refuses at first, but when Jess asks her if she is scared and she goes in to talk to Janice. The bell rings, and Jess has to leave before he can find out what has happened. He does not have a chance to talk to her until after school that day, when they are in Terabithia together. Leslie tells him that Janice's father beats her, severely and regularly, the sort of beatings they imprison people for. That day, she had been so furious with her father that she had told her two best friends about it. Those friends had proceeded to blab it all over the school. This is a terrible thing to have happen, because one of the cardinal rules of life at Lark Creek Elementary is that you do not take home problems to school with you. In telling her friends about the beatings, Janice had betrayed her father, in the eyes of her schoolmates, and they had all be able to laugh at her from now on. Leslie had tried to comfort Janice as best she could, telling her about how she had been made fun of for not having a television. Leslie tells her to pretend she did not know what her friends were talking about when they spread the story, and that everyone would forget about it in a week. This seemed to make Janice feel a lot better, and had made her sort of dubious friends with Leslie. Leslie is happy about this, proudly telling Jess that thanks to him, she now has one and one-half friends at Lark Creek Elementary. At the end of the chapter, May Belle comes to Jess as he is falling asleep and announces that she followed him and Leslie to Terabithia. Jess is horrified at this, and makes her promise not to tell anyone where they go. May Belle promises, but Jess is profoundly uneasy, wondering how long he can "trust everything that matters to him to a sassy six-year-old." Analysis Jess's discomfort with Leslie's relationship with her father demonstrates how unaware he is of how a good parent-child relationship ought to be. He does not know any families where the parents are friends with the children like that, where they can be so comfortable around one another, and certainly his own home life is nothing like that. As well, he feels threatened by it, revealing his own insecurity about their relationship. He has stated before that he cannot imagine why someone like Leslie would want to be friends with someone like him. His reaction to Leslie's growing friendship with her father is proof that he feels his relationship with her can easily be supplanted or destroyed. The scene with Janice Avery is one of the most memorable in the book. Before, it was noted that Janice's status as a female bully seems to give her character greater depth than most of the other characters at lark Creek. Now her character is fully fleshed out, and we are allowed to see below the surface of a girl whom Jess and Leslie perceived to be almost totally onedimensional. Janice's dysfunctional home life shows how she became so angry, giving her character a new sympathy, and her tears in the bathroom likewise lends her character new depth and emotion. Jess's desire to help her is a testament to the essential goodness of his nature. Although Leslie goes along with him, it is all his initiative, and it demonstrates a degree of kindness and sympathy that even Leslie apparently lacks. Jess's unthinking goad at Leslie when he asks her if she is scared is likewise revelatory of an essential theme in the book. Jess has convinced himself that a truly admirable, grown-up person is never afraid. He hates himself for his own fears, such as his original unease in the pine grove or his sense of trepidation when Leslie describes her underwater exploits. He simply assumes that Leslie is never afraid of anything, because he admires her so much. Yet Leslie clearly is afraid when she first goes in to see Janice Avery. She masters her fear, but then, Jess does the same when he is confronted with one of his fears head-on. Jess begins to realize here that "courage is not absence of fear, but mastery of fear." Chapter 8: Easter Summary Easter is coming up, and Jess's family is starting to prepare excitedly. His family only goes to church on Easter, and when they do it is an event. Brenda and Ellie in particular relish the opportunity to show off in new clothes. However, Jess's dad gets laid off just before Easter, and this means to Ellie and Brenda is that there will be no new clothes. It adds a new stress on an already careworn household. Jess tells Leslie that they go to church on Easter, and Leslie surprises him by asking if she can go with them. She has never been to church, she says, and she wonders what it is all about. Jess is bewildered, and wonders why would anyone want to go to church if they did not have to, but he succeeds in persuading his mother to let Leslie go with them. Church itself is a wholly unfulfilling experience for Jess. He finds the whole thing to be tiresome and monotonous, and has never gotten anything out of the experience. Leslie, however, is fascinated. She finds the Jesus story to be beautiful, like something out of a book. Jess tells her, "it's because we're all vile sinners that God made Jesus die." Leslie does not believe this, and May Belle is horrified, telling Leslie she is going to go to hell if she doesn't believe the Bible. Leslie scoffs at this, too, saying she does not believe God goes around damning people to hell. Jess and Leslie reach an uneasy truce about this, but May Belle cannot be persuaded. Analysis Ellie's and Brenda's fixation on new clothing for Easter, and their feeling that the only value in the experience of going to church is the opportunity to preen in front of a large audience, confirms their shallowness. However, Jess's religious experience is nearly as shallow in a different way. Apparently religion has never been presented to him in a manner that could evoke any true faith or comfort. When questioned by Leslie, Jess's main understanding of religion seems to center around the idea that "It's because we're all vile sinners God made Jesus die." Quite apart from the complete disregard of the true main tenet of Christianity—that it is God's love for those "vile sinners" which led to the crucifixion and the Resurrection—the very phrasing that Jess uses is disturbing. Saying that "God made Jesus die" implies cruelty, and focuses solely on the physical death of Christ rather than his rising from the dead. Obviously, Jess did not come up with this idea himself. This is no doubt meant to be a criticism of the teachings and general atmosphere of the Church, which apparently, in Paterson's view, is full of fire and brimstone and skips over the far more important themes of love and charity. Jess's experience is not unique, but is the experience of thousands of children, young adults, and adults as well. The service is staid and monotonous, and the ideas, to a casual observer of such a Mass as Jess attends, are disturbing. However, Leslie is able to see beyond that. She suggests, hesitantly, that "it's really kind of a beautiful story—like Abraham Lincoln or Socrates—or Aslan." Her comparison of the story of Jesus to the story of Aslan is particularly significant, since the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe , in which Aslan is a character, is actually a religious allegory, and Aslan represents the figure of Christ. Jess, too, appreciates the story of Aslan, and would agree that it is beautiful. But he is unable to see the connection between Jesus and Aslan. His church simply does not present the literal history in a manner that he can grasp. Leslie, on the other hand, is able to see beyond the stale chants and the uncomfortable pews. Her immediate ability to find meaning in the story of Christ is significant, demonstrating the beauty and power that the story can hold when it is looked at from a certain angle. To view the story from this angle, however, requires a pair of fresh eyes and a certain free outlook on life. As mentioned before, Jess's viewpoint is severely limited by what he has been taught all his life and by the atmosphere in which he's grown up. Leslie has had a very different upbringing that has left her with a wider viewpoint and a greater ability to understand the implications of the story of Christ. It is this sort of viewpoint which Leslie attempts to impart to Jess throughout the whole of Bridge to Terabithia. Chapter 9: The Evil Spell Summary It has been raining for a week, and Jess and Leslie are going stir crazy. Finally Jess suggests that they go to Terabithia anyway, and Leslie agrees. When they get there, they find that the creek has swollen enormously. Jess, who has always been somewhat afraid of the water, does not really want to go, but Leslie persuades him. It continues to rain, and with each day that the creek gets higher, Jess's trepidation mounts, until he ends up lying awake at nights worrying about it. He doesn't feel that he can tell Leslie of his fears, but each day it gets harder and harder for him to swing across the creek. One day as they are in Terabithia, Leslie announces that this is no ordinary rain falling on their kingdom, but the work of evil spirits. She suggests that they go to the grove of the spirits and pray for deliverance. Jess is more than usually awkward and not king-like in this scene, as if his own consciousness of his fear and feelings of inferiority are tainting his ability to immerse himself in the fantasy. Leslie, however, does not push him on it, and suggests afterward that they dry out in front of the television at Jess's house. Jess agrees gratefully. But that night, when he wakes up to hear the rain drumming on the roof once more, his fear seizes him all over again, knowing that no matter how high the creek gets, Leslie will still want to swing across. Analysis Jess's self-hatred because of his fears is clearly evident in this chapter. He detests himself for his fear of the creek, feeling it makes him inferior to Leslie. As mentioned before, Jess has a horror of being afraid of anything, probably stemming from his father's well-known expectations that he will be a "true man." As a result, he is unable to speak to Leslie about his fears, even though she could probably have found some way of comforting him or alleviating his fears. He is paralyzed by his own sense of shame and he seems to feel that if Leslie ever knew he was afraid, she would have less respect for him. In reality, this is almost certainly not so. In just the last chapter, Leslie was shown to be afraid of Janice Avery. Jess, however, does not seem able to remember this, or in remembering, does not grasp its true significance. Fear is a natural thing, and Jess's expectation of fearlessness from himself is unrealistic and probably harmful psychologically. But he has no one to tell him that. His family, certainly, would not be able to tell him that, not believing it themselves. Leslie does not know how he feels, so she can do nothing for him. This reinforces the need for honesty and openness in a friendship. In becoming friends with someone, there's an implied acceptance of their foibles and flaws. Jess's relationship with Leslie is close to perfect, but he makes the inaccurate assumption that he needs to be perfect as well to keep their friendship alive. This concealment of his fear from her actually seems to jeopardize the friendship in itself. Jess is nervous and tense around her, and as mentioned before, he seems unable to lose himself in the fantasy of Terabithia as wholly as before. In not admitting his fear to her, he is denying a part of himself and not being wholly natural around Leslie, and that is never a good thing in any friendship. Chapter 10: The Perfect Day Summary Jess is out milking Miss Bessie the next morning when May Belle comes out to tell him he has a phone call. When he takes it, it is Miss Edmunds. She is going to Washington for the day to see the National Gallery and wants to know if he wants to come with her. Jess knows that if he asks his mother's permission to go when she is awake, she will never say yes. Instead, he barely wakes her up, just enough to get a murmur of consent. Soon he is off to Washington with Miss Edmunds. The two of them have a perfect day together. Jess is amazed and awed by the art gallery, and Miss Edmunds is pleased that she is giving him an opportunity to see these magnificent works of art for the first time in his life. Jess is particularly fascinated by a three-dimensional depiction of a buffalo hunt, in which a tribe of Native Americans is chasing a herd of buffalo over the edge of a cliff to their death. Miss Edmunds buys him lunch, which makes Jess rather uncomfortable, but he does not know how to tell her that he does not have any money, and on the way home they get ice cream. As she drops him off, Miss Edmunds thanks Jess for "a beautiful day." Jess is walking on air as he enters the house. When he enters the kitchen, he immediately senses that something is wrong. His whole family is staring at him silently, and suddenly his mother breaks down. He does not know how to ask what has happened, but he does not need to, since Brenda's pouting voice informs him that Leslie died that day. Analysis Miss Edmunds' invitation to Jess to spend the day with her reinforces how unorthodox she is, and how careless of the standard rules and regulations of society as regards propriety and acceptable behavior. In a strict sense, it probably is not terribly appropriate for Miss Edmunds to invite Jess, alone of her students, on a trip to Washington with her, and to buy him lunch and ice cream. This is certainly showing favoritism to Jess, and breaking the traditional boundaries of the student-teacher relationship besides. However, this simply does not seem to matter to Miss Edmunds. She is concerned with essentials and with general kindness and decency: Jess loves art; he has never seen the galleries at Washington; his talent ought to be encouraged and she is the only one to do it. This reinforces that society's standards are not always beneficial or fair, a fact to which Leslie has been opening Jess's eyes ever since she came to Lark Creek. Both Leslie and Miss Edmunds are, to a degree, outside of society's restrictions, and this is part of what makes each one such a good influence on Jess, taking him out of the box as they do and exposing him to the wonders of the larger world. However, this chapter does not really develop any essential themes to the degree that most of the previous chapters have. The chapter is focused around one central contrast, the beauty of Jess's day with Miss Edmunds to the whining revelation of Brenda that Leslie is dead. The two sides of life are shown right here: the world in which everything is right, and the world that silently drops away without a moment's notice. This, too, addresses one of the central facts of adult reality—how the most perfect moment can turn with absolute suddenness to pain and fear. There is a notable lack of foreshadowing in this chapter, too, which is somewhat unusual in literature; often in books there is some sort of sign of what is going to happen, hints dropped here and there which soften the blow. In real life things do not often work like that, and that is what Paterson is emphasizing with the abruptness of the transition. The whole scene carries a tinge of gritty reality, down to the fact that it is Brenda, not one of Jess's parents, who breaks the news to him. One would at least hope that Jess would be told what had happened in a more sensitive and caring way. Again, the scene is dedicated to showing that life simply does not always work that way. Jess has been tossed into an adult world now, and it is utterly strange to him. Chapter 11: No! Summary Jess's father fills in the rest of the information for him. Leslie had tried to swing into Terabithia and the rope broke. She hit her head on something when she fell, which explains why the fact that she could swim did not help her. Jess denies it all point-blank, accusing his father of lying to him. In particular, he wants to assure May Belle that it is a lie, for he sees her looking terrified and knows she is remembering that Leslie was not a Christian and is therefore, to her understanding, going to hell. He shouts at May Belle that it is a lie and then runs out of the house. The truth begins to seep in as he runs, and he counters it by running faster and faster, as if that can keep Leslie from being dead. His dad takes the pickup after him, and picks him up and carries him in. This seems to make something snap within Jess, and he allows himself to go numb. When they reach home, he quietly goes inside and lies down on his bed. He wakes up in the middle of the night, not too sure what has happened. He knows in some part of his mind that Leslie is dead, but he refuses to accept it, "Leslie could not die any more than he himself could die." Instead, he lies awake, planning his next escape to Terabithia with Leslie. He structures whole conversations, apologizing for not inviting her to come to Washington with him and Miss Edmunds, describing the buffalo hunt. It occurs to him to tell her that he was scared to go to Terabithia that morning. But that hits too close to home, and he decides to stop thinking about it. He will tell Leslie when he sees her the next day. He recreates his day with Miss Edmunds in his mind instead, dredging up every detail, keeping the terrible memories at bay. Eventually he falls asleep. When he wakes up his first thought is that he has forgotten the milking, but when he gets to the kitchen he discovers that his father has done it. His mother is strangely gentle toward him, and she has made him pancakes. Jess absorbs himself in eating his pancakes, thinking only how good they are. Eventually Brenda starts to heckle him for eating so calmly, saying, "If Jimmy Dicks died, I would not be able to eat a bite." Their mother tells her to keep her mouth shut, but she persists. All the time Jess is simply tucking away pancakes, not understanding much of what is going on around him. His father comes in and tries to talk to him, to tell him that he is going over to the Burkes to pay his respects, and that Jess ought to come too, since he knew the "little girl" best. Jess asks what little girl, dully confused, and his father tries to explain to him, again, that Leslie is dead. As if sleepwalking, Jess goes to put his jacket on, and they leave for the Burkes'. Analysis Jess is in complete shock throughout this entire chapter, and the chapter is absolutely heart wrenching. Paterson forces us to put ourselves in Jess's place, to try to imagine the anguish that would cause such a complete retreat from reality. The exact attention to detail, the conversations Jess imagines with Leslie, the pancakes he eats the following morning, all serve to evoke the scenes she describes with a precision and clarity which are amazing. It is difficult to tell what Jess's emotions are since he is not really feeling them himself, but Paterson chooses certain details to suggest what he is feeling underneath the numbness. One such moment comes when Jess apologizes to Leslie in his mind for not inviting her to Washington with him. His feeling of guilt is clear. He is not feeling guilty because he thoughtlessly neglected to invite her, but he feels guilty because if he had invited her, she would not have died. There are flaws in this reasoning, because if the rope had not broken that day, it would simply have broken the next time they tried to swing into Terabithia, and either one of them might have died, but Jess does not allow himself to address the issue that clearly. He simply makes it all right in his mind by having Leslie, alive and well, breezily respond that she had been to Washington hundreds of times. He buries his guilt in the same way he is buried his grief, leaving only a vague trace of an immense shame. The same thing happens in the exchange where he tells Leslie that he was scared to go to Terabithia that morning. Here, at last, is proof positive that fears are not necessarily irrational, that he does not need to blame himself for not being an entirely fearless individual. This is almost too much to handle for him. In addition to the incredible shock of having lost his best friend, he now must revise his worldview in an essential way as well. He had blamed himself so strictly for his fears, and now he sees that Leslie's lack of fear got her killed. But this, again, is too concrete a reminder of what has happened. Admitting that his fears were not senseless would be to admit that Leslie is dead, and Jess is studiously avoiding that thought. The anxiety that accompanies this line of thought provokes him to drop the whole thing and to retreat, instead, to safe recollections of his day with Miss Edmunds, when everything was perfect. When Jess puts on his windbreaker at the end of the chapter in preparation to go over to the Burkes', it is a sign that he does understand what is happening on some level. It betrays a tacit acceptance of reality, but not a full one, as he has not allowed himself to feel anything yet. That will come later, because his grief must progress in stages, as it does for everyone. The breaking of the rope into Terabithia is symbolic. When they first created Terabithia, Leslie had decreed that the only way to get in would be to swing on the "magic rope." Otherwise, it would simply be an ordinary woodsy area, not the magic kingdom of Terabithia. Jess feels this to be true as well. There are times when it would be easier to wade the creek, when he is carrying Prince Terrien, for example, but he always manages to find a way to use the rope, because he feels that he won't be entering Terabithia unless he does use the rope. When the rope breaks, it seems to signal the end of Terabithia as well as the end of his friendship with Leslie, and the magic will be ended then and there. The breaking of the rope becomes a tangible symbol of what had already become clear through Leslie's death. Chapter 12: Stranded Summary Jess and his parents walk over to the Burkes'. When they get there, they find the golden room filled with people. All the people crying unnerve Jess. Somewhere between his house and the Burkes', he seems to have gained some sort of an understanding of what happened, but he is only able to examine his thoughts with a clinical detachment, thinking of the practical ways Leslie's death will affect him. The kids at school will be respectful of him. His parents will make his sisters be nice to him. He has reached the second stage in his grieving, but he has barely begun yet. All this breaks when Bill, Leslie's father, comes over to him. He hugs Jess and thanks him repeatedly for being such a wonderful friend to Leslie. Jess retreats from this initially by imagining how he and Leslie would react if they were watching such a melodramatic scene on TV. But his link with that detachment snaps when Bill tells him that they have decided to have Leslie cremated. One of Jess's few acknowledgments of Leslie's death had been contained in a passing thought that he would like to see her one more time, even laid out. Now that he knows he will not see her again, he cannot maintain his sense of apathy any longer, and he runs out of the house. Jess's emotions have turned on again, with a vengeance. When he tears back to his house, May Belle wants to know if he had seen Leslie laid out. May Belle wants to know what a dead person looks like, but Jess just hits her, hard. He gathers up the paint set that Leslie gave him for Christmas, runs back to the creek, and throws it in. Jess's father approaches and tells him, "that was a damn fool thing to do." Jess is sobbing and screaming still, so his father gathers him into his lap, stroking his hair and comforting him. Eventually Jess calms down enough to ask his father whether he thinks that God damns nonChristians to hell. His father is surprised by the question, and replies that Jess has no need to worry about Leslie, that God would not send a little girl to hell. Jess is soothed. When they go back to the house, Jess is closer to feeling like himself than he has been all day. He is still in the throes of grief, is incredibly tired and cannot seem to focus on the outside world. He is thinking more normally, and he is aware of the situation now. Later on, Bill comes by and asks Jess to take care of Prince Terrien while he and his wife go on a trip to Pennsylvania. Jess agrees, and sleeps with Prince Terrien that night, and he is comforted by the warm body of the dog Leslie had loved. Analysis Throughout the book, Jess's family has not been shown in the most positive light, but in this chapter it becomes clear that despite their frequent distraction, frustration, and irritability, they are good people at heart who care about Jess deeply. Leslie's death brings this out in them, and for once they are a source of comfort to him. The scenes with Jess's father are particularly telling. For once, his father seems to have found the right balance between treating Jess as a child and treating him as an adult. He knows that what Jess needs at the moment is to be cradled like a child, and yet he speaks to him as an adult when he talks with him about Leslie's death and the concept of hell. Once it has been established that Jess really needs him—not in the sense that he needs an expensive Christmas present, but that he needs his comfort and advice and love—Mr. Aarons is able to rise to the occasion. The father-son bond is stronger in this chapter than it has been at any other point in the book. Jess's action in throwing away the art supplies Leslie had given him is a complicated one, born of many impulses. Foremost is probably anger, anger with Leslie for leaving him behind to struggle through the rest of his life. This is evident in his attack on May Belle and the furious energy which drives him. Perhaps he feels that by getting rid of the last tangible element of his friendship with Leslie, he will be able to cut her out of his heart as well. Then, too, there is the symbolism of his throwing the paints and paper into the creek where Leslie died. It is almost seems as if he is giving them back to her, canceling his debt of friendship to her, proclaiming that it is as dead as Leslie herself. Last, it seems to be a declaration that all the talent and uniqueness in him were dependent on her. Without her, he is just a stupid little fifth-grader again, a crazy little kid who likes to draw instead of the king of Terabithia and a soon-to-beworld-famous artist. Jess feels that Leslie has drawn him up to higher levels personally, and now that he is gone, he seems to feel that he cannot maintain a claim on those new parts of himself. The paint set is a symbol of this, and no doubt that it is part of why he throws it away. Chapter 13: Building the Bridge Summary The next morning Jess heads down to the creek. He means to see if he can find any of his paints, but once he is there he decides to go to Terabithia instead. He crosses on an old branch and then hesitates, unsure of what to do. For a minute he is convinced that the magic has indeed departed forever, that Leslie's death and the breaking of the rope cemented his fate as an ordinary boy rather than a king for the rest of his life. He has always felt somewhat at a loss without Leslie to guide him through the wonders of the kingdom. She is always been the one who spoke so royally, who had most of the ideas, who really had a sense of how a magic kingdom should be. Jess wants to recapture that, but he's not sure how. Eventually he decides to make a funeral wreath. Jess is pleased with the effect when he has done. He picks it up and slowly, at the head of a great procession, carries it to the grove of the spirits. Here he manages to find words, lifted from his few experiences at church, "Father, into thy hands I commend her spirit." Those words have the ring of the sacred grove in them, and Jess begins to feel that perhaps he can be a king even now that his queen is gone. Just then he hears a shriek. May Belle has tried to cross to the other side of the creek on the branch, but she has gotten stuck halfway and is too terrified to move. Jess is still in control, and the sense of strength that descended upon him in the sacred grove has not left him. He rescues her, coaxing her across to the other side. May Belle confesses that she had wanted to help him so he would not be lonely, but that she got too scared. Jess assures her that everyone gets scared, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. They walk back to the house together. The next day in school, Leslie's desk has already been taken out of the classroom. Everything floods back to Jess, this time in a different light. All her schoolmates had hated Leslie, he thinks, and they would not care that she was dead. They were all too eager to get rid of her desk and the memory of her. Jess is sullen and withdrawn until Mrs. Myers calls him outside the room to speak with him. She expresses her sympathy, saying how extraordinary Leslie was and how much she will miss her. Mrs. Myers said that since she will miss her, she cannot imagine how much harder it must be for Jess. She tells him that when her husband died, people were always telling her she would forget, but that she did not want to forget. She knows it is the same for Jess now, and she wants him to know that if she can ever help him through this in any way, he should let her know. Mrs. Myers's words actually have meaning for Jess, and help him to see Mrs. Myers in a whole new light. He appreciates knowing that he will never forget Leslie. He thinks about how Leslie has changed him, and he realizes that the only way to preserve both those changes and her memory is to preserve Terabithia. He knows that Terabithia is not the ultimate destination in his life. Terabithia is a place of childhood, and that he must graduate from there to the real world. He is resolved not to let Terabithia die when he leaves it for this new world pressing on him. The Burkes move out of the old Perkins place several days later, saying that without Leslie, there is no reason to stay there anymore. They give Jess all Leslie's books and her own watercolor set, and tell him that if he wants anything they have left behind, all he has to do is ask. Jess requests some of the lumber on their back porch. The next day Jess goes down to the creek and builds a bridge across it with the lumber he got from the Burkes. He brings May Belle down and swears her to secrecy, although he says she might want to let Joyce Ann in on the secret in time. They cross the bridge to Terabithia and he tells May Belle the Terabithians are all in a flutter, saying, "there's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arriving today might be the queen they've been waiting for." Analysis The final chapter ties up a lot of the loose ends in the book without ever being trite or simplistic. Jess's realization is that the magic is in him, not just in Leslie, and that he has worth on his own as well as with her. It reinforces that a part of their friendship will live on, and that although Leslie herself is gone, traces of her still remain so long as he remembers her. This helps him to achieve a new peace within himself and to carry on as a stronger person. Jess's rescue of May Belle serves a double function. In one way it seems to be a recreation of Leslie's death, only with a different ending. May Belle could easily have slipped and drowned, and it would all have taken place again, but here Jess saves her life. Perhaps this helps him to feel he's atoned for the mistake which still haunts him, when he neglected to invite Leslie along with him and Miss Edmunds. His rescue of May Belle is clearly symbolic of the fact that Leslie's death does not leave the world hopeless and that it does not signify the end of everything. Her rescue is a renewal. This is developed when Jess brings her across the bridge to Terabithia. Leslie was an amazingly special person, but she wasn't the only special person in the world, and if Jess is to carry on with his life in a way that she would have liked, he must take advantage of the other precious relationships in his life. In doing so, he is preserving her memory as well. The building of the bridge shows that the magic was not in the rope, as Leslie had said, and it was not all in Leslie, either. Instead, it is in the heart of any person dedicated to seeking it. Important Quotations Explained "Jess drew the way some people drank whiskey. The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body. Lord, he loved to draw. Animals, mostly. Not regular animals like Miss Bessie and the chickens, but crazy animals with problems—for some reason he liked to put his beasts into impossible fixes… He would like to show his drawings to his dad, but he didn't dare. When he was in first grade, he told his father than he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. He'd thought he would be pleased. He wasn't. 'What are they teaching in that damn school?' he had asked. 'Bunch of old ladies turning my son into some kind of a—' He had stopped on the word, but Jess had gotten the message. It was one you didn't forget, even after four years." This passage comes near the beginning of Chapter 2, before we ever meet Leslie, when we're just getting to know Jess. Jess's artistry is one of the key factors in his character: it is one thing that distinguishes him throughout, which makes it clear that he is special. Yet, despite the fact that it is his passion, he receives very little support from anyone; his father, in particular, as is evidenced by the above quote, is disdainful of such a "non-masculine" pursuit and would like him to simply eliminate that passion from his heart. This is probably why Jess likes to draw animals in "impossible fixes." It is a reflection of his own hopelessly conflicted heart when it comes to the subject of art. By putting his worries down on paper and then putting a humorous twist on them, he is attempting to work out his own anxiety and put it into perspective. A love and skill for art are born in him, an inextricable part of who he is; he could no more change it than he could change the color of his hair. His family's attempts, conscious and unconscious, to repress this symbolize a much larger issue, their myriad demands of conformity in so many aspects of his life. Jess's struggle to find himself against the current of his family's expectations of him are crystallized in the above passage. "He believed her because here in the shadowy light of the stronghold everything seemed possible. Between the two of them they owned the world and no enemy, Gary Fulcher, Wanda Kay Moore, Janice Avery, Jess's own fears and insufficiencies, nor any of the foes whom Leslie imagined attacking Terabithia, could ever really defeat them." This quote comes in Chapter 4, just after they have finished building their castle stronghold in Terabithia, the first day that they have conceived of the game. It describes the sense of belonging that Jess feels in this newfound kingdom, where he and Leslie rule supreme, idealized and undefeatable and immortal. He sees it as a perfect escape from harsh reality and not just externals like school enemies, but also his own self-doubts and fears. It offers a ray of hope which he sorely needs as he struggles to make the transition between childhood and adulthood in a way that will please everybody. In Terabithia, he lives by his own standards and according to his own impulses and personality. There, he feels himself to be the person he is struggling to grow into. "I know Leslie. I know she's not going to bite my head off or make fun of me if I say I don't want to go over again till the creek's down. All I gotta do is say 'Leslie, I don't wanta go over there today.' Just like that. Easy as pie. 'Leslie, I don't wanta go over there today.' 'How come?' 'How come. Because, because, well because…'" This quote, which occurs in Chapter 10, summarizes Jess's fear of swinging across the creek to Terabithia after a week of rain when the creek is high. He has always been afraid of the water and of drowning, and with the creek overflowing its banks, he is terrified to swing across it. Jess detests himself for this fear, even as he strives to tell himself that it is not that terrible of a thing and that Leslie will not judge him the way he judges himself. In the above quotation, he recognizes that his reluctance to tell Leslie of his fears is completely out of proportion, and that Leslie will understand. However, he is so ashamed of his fear that he cannot bring himself to speak. He sees fear as something totally shameful, a betrayal of the strong king of Terabithia who is his alter ego. He does not realize sufficiently, at this point, that everyone has fears and that they are a normal. This disgust with himself for his fears torments him through most of the novel. It is not till the very end that he's able to make peace with his fears. "He screamed something without words and flung the papers and paints into the dirty brown water… He watched them all disappear. Gradually his breath quieted, and his heart slowed from its wild pace. The ground was still muddy from the rains, but he sat down anyway. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere. Ever again. He put his head down on one knee. "'That was a damn fool thing to do.' His father sat down on the dirt beside him. "'I don't care. I don't care.' He was crying now, crying so hard he could barely breathe. "His father pulled Jess over on his lap as if he were Joyce Ann. 'There. There," he said, patting his head. 'Shhh. Shhh.'" This scene comes in Chapter 12, the day after Leslie has died, when Jess is just beginning to allow himself to feel his anger and grief. In throwing away the paint set, he is not only throwing away a reminder of Leslie, he is throwing away a part of himself as well, an acknowledgment of his artistic talent and calling. He feels that he is lost the best part of himself with Leslie. His father, on the other hand, reverses all his paternal insufficiencies that plague him and Jess through the rest of the book. Mr. Aarons has always been a little awkward around his son, undemonstrative and expectant. As mentioned before, he never approved of Jess's artistic leanings. Now, by telling Jess that throwing away the art set was a "damn fool thing to do," he is announcing that he has come to accept that part of Jess, and that Jess's attempt to deny it is foolish and unnecessary. One suspects that before now, if Jess had voluntarily thrown away his paint set, his father would have been pleased. Now he seems to realize that it is simply a part of Jess, which cannot be denied and should not to be denied. And when he takes Jess in his arms "as if he were Joyce Ann," he at last makes up for all the years when he maintained a distance from Jess, believing that a young man didn't need cuddling and coddling. In this time of crisis, Jess's father is shown to be an admirable one, and the suddenly solid relationship between them helps Jess to heal. "It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn't king the best you could be? 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. For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world—huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile? (Handle with care— everything—even the predators.) "Now it was time for him to move out. She wasn't there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength. "As for the terrors ahead—for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him—well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white. Right, Leslie? "Right." This passage, which occurs in Chapter 13, just a few pages from the end of the book, signifies Jess's having made his peace with Leslie's death, and having come to some new realizations about himself in the process. Terabithia is essentially a symbol of idealized childhood, and even the most perfect childhood must give way to adulthood sooner or later. Similarly, the most beautiful fantasyland can never really replace true reality. It has its place, but that place is meant to last for a season only. Jess resolves that he will go on living in the bigger world, and that Leslie's memory will strengthen him in his quest to make his life one worth living. Significantly, Jess does not say that he is going to pass on the vision and strength that are Leslie's legacy to him. Instead, he will distribute beauty and caring, his own unique gifts. This reinforces that Jess is not simply a carbon copy of Leslie, but that his talents and virtues are his own and separate from hers. The last section of the quote, where he accepts that he will always have fears to face, and that all he can hope to do is face them bravely, and not eliminate them, is one of the most important in the book. Jess has struggled with self- hatred because of his fears through the entire novel. Now he has finally reached the realization that being afraid is not such a terrible thing, and that the best anyone can do is simply try to manage their fears and not let them get out of hand. Paradoxically, Leslie's death has set a few demons to rest for Jess, demonstrating that hardship has shaped him into a stronger person. Key Facts full title · Bridge to Terabithia author · Katherine Paterson type of work · Novel genre · Children's literature time and place written · 1977, Virginia date of first publication · 1978 publisher · HarperCollins narrator · The narration is told in the author's voice, but the point of view is clearly Jess's. climax · The moment when Jess returns from his trip to Washington with Miss Edmunds to find that Leslie has drowned. protagonist · Jess, and secondarily, Leslie antagonist · There is no clearly defined antagonist in Bridge to Terabithia ; the closest thing would be society and its pressures to conform. setting (time) · The late 1970s setting (place) · Lark Creek, a rural area in the South; specifics are never given point of view · The point of view throughout the story is Jess's. falling action · The last chapter, when the Burkes move away and Jess builds the bridge to Terabithia. tense · Past foreshadowing · There is not too much foreshadowing in Bridge to Terabithia, but there is one moment when May Belle, agitated because she believes Leslie's lack of faith in the Bible means she is going to hell, repeats over and over, "But Leslie, what if you die? What if you die?" tone · The tone of the writing is, in general, colloquial and understated. themes · Friendship; childhood; conformity and individuality; fear motifs · Religion; gender roles; education symbols · The creek; the rope over the creek; Terabithia; the bridge to Terabithia Study Questions and Essay Topics Study Questions Leslie and Jess seem to balance one another out perfectly, blending seamlessly into one harmonious friendship. What is it that makes these two so compatible? What does their friendship say about each of them, and what does their friendship specifically say about friendship in general? Jess at one point explains his friendship with Leslie by saying that "if there had been anyone else at that durned school," she would not have had to bother with him. In fact, the reader can see that Jess is doing himself an injustice in saying this. Both Jess and Leslie have individual characteristics that the other person responds to. Leslie is well read, imaginative, courageous, and self-assured. Jess is intelligent, but not particularly well educated, practical, kind, and compassionate. There is an overlap between them—this is not to say that Leslie is unkind, or Jess is unimaginative—but these are the main traits which distinguish each of them. Together, they make a perfect pair. This says a lot about the need to appreciate one's own contribution to a friendship, as well as the other person's. Jess feels so strongly that Leslie is an amazing person that he forgets that he himself must be rather special in order to maintain a true friendship with her. In reading Bridge to Terabithia, since Leslie is so extraordinary and so unique, and Jess is less flamboyantly so, one might be tempted to chalk most of the magic of the friendship up to Leslie. However, Jess's contribution is just as important, and ultimately he is just as special. Bridge to Terabithia is a tribute to the wonder and magic that is possible in a true friendship, and it emphasizes clearly that this wonder and magic are always tied up intimately with both friends, not dependent on just one. What is the treatment of gender roles in Bridge to Terabithia? Katherine Paterson addresses the theme of gender and cross-gender friendships with sensitivity and insight in Bridge to Terabithia. Jess lives in a world where gender roles are very clearly defined: women seem to be expected to stay at home and take care of the house, and men are expected to shoulder most of the responsibility. Certainly most of the females depicted in Bridge to Terabithia, Jess's sisters and female classmates in particular, are shallow and vain. Jess's father, on the other hand, from whom we see the most insistence on Jess's conformity to the masculine gender role, is worn by the many cares of his household, preoccupied with material concerns, and awkwardly undemonstrative with Jess. Jess is led to believe that he must live up to this masculine ideal, and that his love for painting is a betrayal of the "true man" his father expects him to be. When Leslie comes along, all this is challenged. As is mentioned in the chapter analyses, Leslie's original appearance of androgyny is crucial to Jess's immediate perception of her. It places her outside this system that constrains and confuses Jess. A friendship between a boy and a girl would have been rather taboo in the atmosphere of Lark Creek Elementary and the Aarons' home, but the gender difference doesn't matter to Jess or Leslie. Seemingly all their classmates and acquaintances assume automatically that their relationship must be that of boyfriend and girlfriend, therefore relegating it to a socially accepted niche. However, there is never any romantic or sexual tension in their friendship, simply comradeship and affection. There are plenty of differences between the two, but virtually none of them are gender-specific. It is from Leslie that Jess learns that he must be his own person, not merely his own man. Discuss the portrayal of religion in Bridge to Terabithia. Is it presented in a positive, negative, or indifferent light? In particular, what does Paterson's take seem to be on organized religion? Katherine Paterson's depiction of religion in Bridge to Terabithia is, no doubt, one of the main reasons that the book has been embroiled in a censorship debate for decades. Certainly her views are not engineered to satisfy orthodoxy. Neither the Aarons family nor the Burke family attends church with any regularity; the Aaronses go once a year, out of a sense of tradition rather than any spiritual desire, and the Burkes never attend at all. None of the characters in the book except for Leslie find any true meaning or value in religion. The subject simply frightens and confuses Jess and May Belle, instilling in them a vague sense of guilt and anxiety, and the rest of the family sees church as just another social gathering—epitomized in the vanity of Ellie and Brenda, who go to church simply to show off their new clothes. Leslie does find meaning in the experience, but her fascination is an intensely personal one. Leslie is not at all constrained by doctrine or stern Church teachings and dictates. She finds the central story of Christ's redemptive death and resurrection to be beautiful and moving, but she disdains the harsher teachings concerning damnation and penalties for not accepting organized religion. It is implied that Leslie's faith is faith as it should be, or at least the germ of such a faith. She is able to find true spiritual meaning within herself by interacting with Church teachings and deciding for herself what to believe and what to discount. Jess and May Belle, who are far more orthodox, receive little or no spiritual nourishment from their so-called "faith," because they have never reexamined it thoughtfully and tried to determine what belief system would make the most sense to them and help them to grow the most spiritually. Ironically, Leslie's agnostic upbringing is actually far better soil to encourage the sprouting of true spiritualism than is the Aarons's lackadaisical insistence on dry doctrine. Leslie has been brought up to consider the world with an intellectual curiosity and to be alive to all the implications of the things that she encounters. Although this has never specifically included religion, her upbringing serves her well when it comes to pondering and assimilating religion. Jess has never been taught to look at things from such an angle, and without this angle, all that's left of religion is a set of rules, a longish ceremony, and hard pews and kneelers. Paterson is certainly not attacking religion in Bridge to Terabithia, although some fundamentalists might believe that. Instead, she advocates delving into oneself to find the true meaning of faith and spirituality, resulting in a deeper and more sincere belief. Suggested Essay Topics Discuss the difference between the Burke family and the rest of the families in Lark Creek— specifically, the Aaronses. Can all the differences between them be traced back to education and economic comfort, or is there something more? Is there an essential difference between the Burkes and the Aaronses, or are the differences merely external? Discuss the theme of fear in the novel. Is Leslie's relative fearlessness a virtue or is it a reckless lack of caution that ultimately gets her killed? Or is it both? Do you think that utter fearlessness should be honored as a virtue, or should it be tempered with a healthy sense of danger? Which character is more admirable in this regard, Jess or Leslie? What is the role of the family in Bridge to Terabithia ? Does Jess and Leslie's friendship suggest that ties of blood are not as important as those forged by choice between friends? Is there something in the bonds that a family shares that can't be replicated in a friendship, or does all affection work the same way on its recipients? Cite examples from the text to support your answer. Discuss the figure of Miss Edmunds. What is it about her that appeals to Jess so strongly? Is her unique appeal tied in to her liberal, "hippie" leanings, or is that simply peripheral? Is what Jess feels simply knee-jerk infatuation, or does it run deeper than that? Trace the evolution of Jess's character throughout the novel. Are all the changes in him attributable to Leslie, or are some of them the inevitable effects of growing up? Is the Jess of the last chapter noticeably different from the Jess of the first chapter, or are the changes subtler than that? The novel's use of profanity has been the ostensible reason for most of the censorship requests. What does this colloquial feel add to the novel? How would the novel be different if Paterson had censored her own language, or changed the writing style entirely to something more descriptive and academic? Do you feel the complaints of those who call for censorship are justified? Quiz What grade is Jess in when the story begins? (A) Fourth (B) Fifth (C) Sixth (D) Seventh How many siblings does Jess have? (A) Three; Three sisters (B) Four; four sisters (C) Four; three sisters and a brother (D) Five; three sisters and two brothers When Jess first sees Leslie Burke, what is his initial confusion? (A) He does not know who she is or where she lives (B) He does not know if she is addressing him or May Belle (C) He cannot tell if she is a boy or a girl (D) He worries that she is a spy hired by Gary Fulcher to scout out Jess's improvement in running Why does Jess initially react badly to Leslie? (A) She is a new and therefore strange girl, and she beats him in the races (B) She does not have a television (C) She does not dress properly for the first day of school (D) She tries to kiss him What subject does Miss Edmunds teach? (A) Science (B) Art (C) Music (D) Arithmetic Who is Janice Avery? (A) A friend of Leslie's from her old school (B) A teaching assistant at the school (C) Jess's girlfriend (D) The school bully What is the name of Jess and Leslie's teacher at school? (A) Mrs. Campbell (B) Mrs. Myers (C) Mrs. Pierce (D) Mrs. Flynn Which of the following is not one of Leslie's hobbies or interests? (A) Running (B) Reading (C) Hiking (D) Scuba Diving Who names Terabithia? (A) Jess (B) Leslie (C) May Belle (D) Jess and Leslie find the word carved into the trunk of a tree What are Leslie's parents' names? (A) Bill and Judy (B) Frank and June (C) Frank and Judy (D) Bill and June How many siblings does Leslie have? (A) None (B) One (C) One half-sister from a previous marriage of her father's (D) Two What do Leslie and Jess do to get back at Janice Avery for stealing May Belle's Twinkies? (A) Tease her about being overweight in front of the whole bus (B) Arrange to have the principal catch her smoking in the girls' room (C) Write a fake love letter to her from the most attractive boy in the seventh grade (D) Steal her lunch on the bus What does Leslie get for Jess for Christmas? (A) A set of The Chronicles of Narnia (B) A puppy (C) A TV for his room (D) A complete paint set and pad of art paper What does Jess get for Leslie for Christmas? (A) A puppy (B) He builds a moat around the castle in Terabithia (C) He steals Ellie's see-through blouse and gives it to her (D) He makes her a book of his drawings What color does Leslie's father paint the living room? (A) Blue (B) Gold (C) They peel the wallpaper off, sand the walls, and just leave the natural wood (D) Pink Where in Terabithia is the home of the spirits? (A) In the castle (B) In the clearing just on the other side of the creek (C) In the grove of pine trees, deeper in the woods (D) In the branches of the trees that arch above the castle How often does Jess's family go to church? (A) Once a year, at Easter (B) On Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and Easter (C) Never (D) Every week What are Jess's sisters' names? (A) Eileen, Brenda, May Belle, and Joy Anne (B) Ellie, Brenda, Amy, Mary, and Joyce (C) Ellie, Brenda, May Belle, and Joyce Ann (D) Ellie, Brianne, and Jessica How often does Leslie's family go to church? (A) Occasionally, though infrequently (B) The Burkes are Jewish, so they attend temple instead (C) Never (D) Every week What is the name of Leslie's puppy? (A) Jester Jerry (B) Prince William (C) Jess (D) Prince Terrien What happens to the Aarons family just before Easter? (A) Their cow, Miss Bessie, dies (B) Mr. Aarons loses his job (C) They lose the mortgage on their house (D) Ellie gets pregnant Where does Miss Edmunds take Jess on their trip to Washington? (A) The National Gallery (B) The Smithsonian (C) On a tour of the White House (D) The Vietnam Memorial How does Leslie die? (A) She runs through her foot with a rusty nail she and Jess had been using to renovate Terabithia and dies of tetanus (B) She is attacked by a bobcat in the woods (C) She drowns in the creek (D) She falls into an old well on their property What does Jess do after Leslie dies? (A) He runs away from home and takes Prince Terrien (B) He burns the castle at Terabithia (C) He throws the paint set Leslie gave him into the creek (D) He beats up Gary Fulcher for being mean to Leslie at school After Jess builds the bridge to Terabithia, whom does he establish as his new queen? (A) May Belle (B) Janice Avery (C) Joyce Ann (D) Miss Edmunds Suggestions for Further Reading Schmidt, Gary D. Katherine Paterson. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994. West, Mark. Trust Your Children: Voices against Censorship in Children's Literature. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., 1997. Chaston, Joel D. "The Other Deaths in Bridge to Terabithia." Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 16.4 (1991–1992 Winter): 238–41. Carla, Robert. Books and the Teen-age Reader. New York: Harper Row, 1967. Paterson, Katherine. "Wednesday's Children". Horn Book Magazine 62.3 (1986 Spring): 287– 294. Simmons, John. "A Bridge Too Far–But Why?" ALAN Review 25.2 (1998 Winter): 21–22. Misheff, Sue. "Beneath the Web and over the Stream: The Search for Safe Places in Charlotte's Web and Bridge to Terabithia." Children's Literature in Education 29.3 (1998 Fall): 131–141. How to Cite This SparkNote Full Bibliographic Citation MLA SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Bridge to Terabithia.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 1 Aug. 2013. The Chicago Manual of Style SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Bridge to Terabithia.” SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/terabithia/ (accessed August 1, 2013). APA SparkNotes Editors. (n.d.). SparkNote on Bridge to Terabithia. Retrieved August 1, 2013, from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/terabithia/ In Text Citation MLA “Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid” (SparkNotes Editors). APA “Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid” (SparkNotes Editors, n.d.). Footnote The Chicago Manual of Style Chicago requires the use of footnotes, rather than parenthetical citations, in conjunction with a list of works cited when dealing with literature. 1 SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Bridge to Terabithia.” SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/terabithia/ (accessed August 1, 2013). Please be sure to cite your sources. For more information about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, please read our article on The Plagiarism Plague. If you have any questions regarding how to use or include references to SparkNotes in your work, please tell us. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. Chapter 2: Leslie Burke Chapter 3: The Fastest Kid in the Fifth Grade Chapter 4: Rulers of Terabithia Chapter 5: The Giant Killers Chapter 6: The Coming of Prince Terrien Chapter 7: The Golden Room Chapter 8: Easter Chapter 9: The Evil Spell Chapter 10: The Perfect Day Chapter 11: No! Chapter 12: Stranded Chapter 13: Building the Bridge