Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson

Published by Puffin Books: England, 1995.
First published 1977.

I saw the movie version of Bridge to Terabithia some years ago, so I knew the basic plot, but it isn't a book I've ever read before. 

Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr (nicknamed Jess), is a ten year old boy growing up in the post-Vietnam era United States. He is the middle child out of five, and the only boy in the family. His sisters' names are (in descending order): Ellie, Brenda, May Belle and Joyce Ann - names that give you a rough idea of the sort of area in America the family are based, as well as the stereotypical accent with which they speak!

Jess befriends Leslie Burke, his new neighbour, and together the two children invent a made-up country called Terabithia, based largely on Leslie's recollections of the Narnia series by CS Lewis, in which they are kings and queens. Unlike Narnia, Terabithia is never portrayed as anything other than a product of Jess and Leslie's imagination, and also is often not the main focus of the plot. Rather, Bridge to Terabithia is more about Jess and Leslie's growing friendship, about learning to make friends and understand different points of view, and - later in the book - learning to deal with grief.

Most people who know much about the book will have an idea of where it is going in regards to this latter focus, and there are minor foreshadowing elements, but it is still somewhat of a shock when the plot turns in this way. Terabithia is definitely a children's book, but even so I found myself tearing up just a little at certain moments, particularly those in which Jess matures in his relationship towards family members, and when the titular bridge to Terabithia is finally installed.

As I have already said, Terabithia is a children's book, but it is one of the better written ones I've read lately. It faces some big topics and asks some interesting questions.

Worth checking out.

Also, and I'm adding this after the main review as it is just my own thoughts and not in the book at all... I wonder if the name Terabithia was also inspired by Narnia. In the Narnian book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the island nation of Terabinthia is mentioned.

Suspiciously similar if not an homage, no?

Completed 27 January 2021.



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