"We need a place ... just for us. It would be so secret we would never tell anyone in the whole world about it ... It might be a whole secret country ...
and you and I would be rules of it."
"Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits."
You are probably familiar with this famous book so I thought I would share a few text quotes:
"It was May Belle who came to tell him in the bean patch that people were moving into the old Perkins place down on the next farm. Jess wiped the hair out of his eyes and squinted. Sure enough. A U-Haul was parked right by the door. One of those big jointed ones. These people had a lot of junk. But they wouldn't last."
"Miss Edmunds, the music teacher. She was the only one he dared to show anything to, and she'd only been at school one year, and then only on Fridays. Miss Edmunds was one of his secrets. He was in love with her. Not the kind of silly stuff Ellie and Brenda giggled about on the telephone. This was too real and too deep to talk about, even to think about very much. Her long swishy black hair, blue eyes ... Lord, she was gorgeous. And she liked him too."
'We just moved in,' ... 'I thought we might as well be friends ... There's no one else close by.'
Girl he decided. definitely a girl, but he couldn't have said why he was suddenly sure. She was about his height - not quite though, he was pleased to realise as she came nearer.
'My name's Leslie Burke.'
She even had one of those dumb names that could go either way ...
"Jess drew the way some people drink whisky. 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."
'We've been away for many years ... How do you suppose the kingdom has fared in our absence?'
'Where've we been?'
'Conquering the hostile savages on our northern borders ... But the lines of communication have been broken, and thus we do not have tiding of our beloved homeland for many a full moon.'
How was that for regular queen talk? Jess wished he could match it."
"They took turns swinging across the gully on the rope. It was a glorious autumn day, and if you looked up as you swung, it gave you the feeling of floating. Jess leaned back, and drank in the rich, clear colour of the sky. He was drifting, drifting like a fat white lazy cloud back and forth across the blue."
"Somehow this year May Belle needed something special. She was always moping around. He and Leslie couldn't include her in their activities, but that was hard to explain to someone like May Belle."
"Later that afternoon Leslie gave Jess is present. It was a box of watercolours with twenty-four tubes of colour and three brushes and a pad of heavy art paper. ...'It's not a great present like yours,' she said humbly, 'but I hope you'll like it."
"They smiled at each other trying to ignore May Bell's anxious little voice, 'But Leslie,' she insisted. 'What if you die? What's going to happen to your if you die?"
Awards:
- 1977 ALA Notable Children’s Books
- 1977 School Library Journal Best Book of the year
- 1978 Newbery Medal
- 1978 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
- 1981 Janusz Korczak Medal (Poland)
- 1981 Silver Pencil Award (Netherlands)
- 1986 Le Grand Prix des Jeunes Lecturs (France)
- 1986 Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
I have begun reading children's classic books - I picked up a few at a recent charity book sale. These are mostly books I have read previously - in most cases decades ago. Bridge to Terabithia was published in 1977 so I did not read this when I was in Primary school. I think perhaps I read it some time in the early 1980s. Re-reading this over the last day I had forgotten most of the plot details and even though I did remember the tragedy of this story I did cry on the train yesterday when I reached the final chapters. I had totally forgotten the relationship between Jess and his little sister May Beth and in my memory there was a funeral but I think I mixed this book up with another tragic story - A Taste of Blackberries.
Book seller blurb: Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke, outpaces him. The two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie's house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. One morning, Leslie goes to Terabithia without Jess and a tragedy occurs. It will take the love of his family and the strength that Leslie has given him for Jess to be able to deal with his grief.
Read the Kirkus Star review from 1977. It is interesting reading this 2013 review from Kids' Book Review which is an Australian site - the reviewer had never read this classic book prior to her review. I am not sure Bridge to Terabithia should be used as a class novel (I do know this happens in lots of schools) but if you have some time to think more deeply about this book take a look at these notes and questions.
Eight Memorable Facts About ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ (source Mental Floss)
- Before writing Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson wanted to be a missionary in China.
- Bridge to Terabithia was inspired by a real-life incident.
When Paterson’s son David was just 8 years old, he had a best friend named Lisa Hill. The two frequently hung out near a creek bed in Takoma Park, Maryland. Tragically, Lisa died after being struck by lightning.
- The name Terabithia came from another book.
“I realized when the book was nearly done, that there is an island in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis called ‘Terebinthia.’ I’m sure I borrowed that unconsciously, but, then, so would Leslie who loved the Chronicles of Narnia. And, by the way, Lewis got Terebinthia from the biblical terebinth tree, so it wasn’t original with him either.”
- Paterson thought Bridge to Terabithia would be “too personal” to succeed ...
- ... And her son found it hard to read.
- Bridge to Terabithia is a highly controversial book.
The book often lands on the American Library Association’s list of banned library books
- There won’t be a sequel.
- Bridge to Terabithia has been adapted twice as a movie 1985 and 2007
I have added some other books by Katherine Paterson to my 'to re-read' list - The Great Gilly Hopkins, Flip Flop Girl, The Same Stuff as Stars and The Field of Dogs.
The imaginative play in their world of Terabithia and the life tragedy also made me think of this old Australian book Swashbuckler.
Here are some books by Katherine Paterson that I have explored on this blog:
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